Collaborations Workshop 2018: The open science event of 2018

Posted by s.aragon on 24 November 2017 - 8:00am

By Raniere Silva, Community Officer, Software Sustainability Institute.

The Collaborations Workshop (CW) is the Institute’s premier event series. It brings together key members of the research software community including researchers, developers, managers, legal staff, administrators, publishers, funders and more who work together to explore best practices and the future of research software. The Collaborations Workshop 2018 (CW18—#CollabW18) will take place in the City of Cardiff at The School of Mathematics, Cardiff University on 26th–28th March 2018.

CW18 will focus on culture change, productivity and sustainability. Advocates of better research software or open science often cite productivity and sustainability as some of the reasons for changing research practices. But sometimes changes to practice clash with changes to the culture. For example, it is hard for an open science advocate to persuade someone to do a preregistration when they know none of their peers do. To find out more ways to be more productive and make your research or software sustainable, the Collaborations Workshop is your must-attend event for 2018.

The Collaborations Workshop series uses a unique ‘unconference’ style format to facilitate the start of new collaborations among participants. On average, each participant comes away with two new collaborations from the event.

The three days are filled with two-minute lightning talks, discussion sessions on key topics chosen by those attending, the opportunity to group-write a speed blog which the Institute will then publish, collaborative ideas sessions where you explore problems and offer solutions. There are also mini-workshops where you can delve deeper into a topic of interest with an expert, and a hackday where you get to form teams and compete for generous prizes. See the provisional agenda for a look at what is being planned. There is also a social programme focused on exploring Cardiff's history and cultural heritage; this also offers more opportunities for networking and enrichment.

The Collaborations Workshop (CW17) focussed on The Internet of Things (IoT) and Open Data. For further information, please see the CW17 page and report.

The Software Sustainability Institute is committed to equal opportunity and creating a safe, inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds. We strive to better represent the communities we’re part of. Thus, we highly encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to register for and participate in our events as we aim for representatives of all people, all backgrounds, and all perspectives.