![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig0.png\")
I have written a lot of notes that I never saw again. Not because I deleted them. They were still somewhere on my computer, carefully saved inside a folder with a sensible name. The problem was remembering that they existed when I actually needed them. That is the strange thing about most note-taking systems. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to store information and surprisingly little time thinking about how we will find our way back to it.
\nYou read something interesting. You write a note. You choose a folder. Maybe you add a tag. Then you move on. Months later, you are working on something related and vaguely remember, I know I wrote something about this before. So you search, open a handful of notes that are not quite right. Eventually, you either find it after far too much searching or give up and recreate the idea from scratch. The note is still there. The problem is that it just never found its way back into your thinking.
Obsidian approaches note-taking differently. Instead of treating notes as isolated documents that need to be carefully filed away, Obsidian encourages you to think about how ideas relate to one another. Suppose I am reading about confounding and create a note about it. Somewhere in that note, I mention g-computation. I can simply wrap g-computation in double brackets: [[g-computation]]. Those double brackets create a link. If I already have a note called g-computation, clicking the link takes me there. If I do not, Obsidian lets me create one. More importantly, the relationship works in the other direction too. When I eventually open my g-computation note, I can see that the confounding note links back to it. As I keep reading and writing, these connections accumulate and gradually becomes a network of ideas.
There is another reason I became comfortable with Obsidian. Your notes are simply Markdown files stored in an ordinary folder on your computer. They are not locked inside a proprietary database that only one application understands. Open your Obsidian vault in Finder or File Explorer and your notes are right there as .md files. You can open them with another text editor, move them, back them up, or manage them however you want. If you stopped using Obsidian tomorrow, your notes would still be yours and would still be readable.
Obsidian is also free to use. The features that make the application powerful, including plugins, themes, graph view, linking, and multiple vaults, are available without paying for a subscription. There are paid services such as Obsidian Sync for syncing your vault across devices and Obsidian Publish for publishing notes to the web, but they are optional conveniences. Check obsidian.md/pricing for current numbers, since they change.
\nAnd that brings me to this guide. I use Obsidian mainly for academic and research work, so that is the perspective I will use throughout this guide. You will see examples involving papers, methods, concepts, research projects, and ideas I want to revisit later. But there is nothing inherently academic about the system. The same approach can work for work projects, meeting notes, books, personal writing, recipes, or almost anything else you want to keep and connect.
\nI also do not want this to become one of those Obsidian tutorials where we install twenty-seven plugins, create fourteen folders, design an elaborate tagging taxonomy, and spend three hours building a system for taking notes before we have actually taken a note. We are going to start small. We will install Obsidian, create a vault, understand the few pieces of Markdown you actually need, create our first linked notes, and develop a simple structure for organizing them. From there, we can add templates, daily notes, plugins, backups, and some of the more powerful features, but only when there is a reason for them.
\nDownload Obsidian from obsidian.md for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android. There is no account to create: the app opens straight into a prompt asking what you want to do. Choose Create new vault, give it a name, and pick where it lives on disk.
![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig2.png\")
A vault is a folder. Inside it are .md text files and a hidden .obsidian/ subfolder holding your settings. That is the entire architecture. Open the folder in Finder or Explorer right now and you will see your notes sitting there as ordinary files.
Open your vault and you will see a mostly blank window. Here is what you are looking at.
\n![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig1.png\")
On the left, the file explorer lists every note in your vault; folders here are real folders on disk. In the middle, the editor is where you write. On the right, the graph view shows your notes as dots and their links as lines.
A handful of shortcuts cover most of what you will do:
\n| Shortcut | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|
Ctrl/Cmd + N | \nNew note | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + O | \nQuick switcher \u2014 jump to any note by name | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + P | \nCommand palette \u2014 every command, searchable | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + E | \nToggle editing / reading view | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + F | \nSearch across the whole vault | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + click | \nOpen a link in a new pane | \n
If you learn only one, make it Ctrl/Cmd + O.
![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig7.png\")
Type three or four letters and the note you want is usually the top hit. Once you pass a few hundred notes this becomes how you navigate almost exclusively, and the file explorer turns into decoration.
\nObsidian notes are Markdown, but you rarely have to think about syntax. You type a few characters and the formatting appears live.
\n![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig6.png\")
The syntax you will actually use day to day is small:
\n# Heading 1\n## Heading 2\n\n**bold** *italic* `inline code`\n\n- bullet\n- [ ] unchecked task\n- [x] completed task\n\n> blockquote\n\n[[Link to another note]]\n[[Link to another note|shown as this text]]\n![[Embed another note entirely]]\n\n#tag #nested/tagTwo Obsidian-specific ones are worth calling out. The pipe in [[Note|display text]] lets the link read naturally in a sentence while still pointing at the right file. And ![[Note]] with a leading exclamation mark embeds the whole note inline rather than linking to it (useful for pulling a definition into a summary without duplicating it).
This is the part that matters. Create a note called Confounding and write a couple of sentences. Somewhere in the text, type two opening square brackets: [[.
A dropdown appears. Start typing G-computation. Even though that note does not exist yet, press Enter \u2014 Obsidian creates it the moment you click through.
Now open G-computation and look at the Linked mentions panel.
![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig3.png\")
You typed one link. You got two. That is the whole trick, and it compounds: every time you link a new note to an old one, the old note gets richer without you touching it.
\nNew users spend their first week building an elaborate folder hierarchy and their second week discovering it does not fit. Obsidian gives you three organising tools, and they answer different questions.
\n![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig4.png\")
Folders answer where does this live? A note sits in exactly one. Use them for broad, stable categories. Three to six top-level folders is plenty. Tags answer what kind of note is this? Type #method or #toread anywhere in a note. A note can carry many, which makes tags good for status and type \u2014 things that cut across folders. Nested tags like #status/draft give you a little hierarchy without much cost. Links answer what is this related to? These do the real work. Folders and tags are coarse; links are specific.
The failure mode is over-investing in the first and under-using the third. A flat vault with good links is far more useful than a beautiful eleven-level folder tree with none.
\nHere is a starter structure:
\nmy-vault/\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Daily/ # one note per day, capture inbox\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Notes/ # the permanent, linked notes\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Projects/ # one note per active project\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Reading/ # books, papers, articles\n\u2514\u2500\u2500 Templates/ # reusable note skeletonsLet Notes/ grow flat and link heavily inside it.
Go to Settings \u2192 Core plugins and enable Daily notes. In its options, set the folder to Daily/ and the date format to YYYY-MM-DD so the files sort correctly.
![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/assets/imgs/fig8.png\"/)
The daily note is a capture inbox, not an archive. Anything that occurs to you during the day lands here with no organising: meeting notes, half-ideas, a paper someone recommended, a problem you hit in your analysis. The bar for writing something down should be almost zero.
\nLater, you promote the few things that earned it into real notes in Notes/, with claim-style titles and links. Most of what you capture will not earn it, and that is the point. The inbox absorbs the noise so your permanent notes stay signal.
Turning on the Calendar community plugin gives you the month view shown above, which makes it easy to jump back to \"that Tuesday when the model broke.\"
Enable the Templates core plugin and point it at Templates/. Then create a file there like this:
# {{title}}\n\n**Source:**\n**Date:** {{date}}\n\n## Summary\n\n## Key points\n-\n\n## Links\n-Now Ctrl/Cmd + P \u2192 \"Insert template\" drops that skeleton into any new note.
![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig9.png\")
The payoff is not the typing you save. It is that every literature note has the same shape, so six months later you can skim thirty of them quickly, and a Dataview query can pull fields out of them reliably. Two or three templates is usually the right number: one for literature, one for meetings, one for projects.
\nCommunity plugins live in Settings \u2192 Community plugins \u2192 Browse. You will need to turn off Restricted Mode first.
\nResist installing twenty of them. Each is a thing that can break, conflict, or need migrating, and the most common way to end up with a broken vault and no notes in it is to spend week one configuring instead of writing. Add plugins to solve problems you have actually hit.
\nThe ones that earn their place for most people:
\n| Plugin | \nWhat it solves | \n
|---|---|
| Dataview | \nTurns notes into a queryable database | \n
| Calendar | \nMonth view for daily notes | \n
| Templater | \nTemplates with logic \u2014 dates, prompts, scripting | \n
| Excalidraw | \nHand-drawn diagrams stored inside the vault | \n
| Style Settings | \nTweak theme colours and spacing without CSS | \n
Dataview is the one that changes how the vault feels. Instead of maintaining an index note by hand, you write a query and it stays current.
\n![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig10.png\")
That query sits in a normal note. Every time you open it, Obsidian scans the Reading/ folder and rebuilds the table, so a paper you add next month appears without you editing anything.
Here is the honest truth about the graph view: it is beautiful, it is motivating, and it is useless for the first month.
\n![](\"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/obsidian//../../assets/imgs/fig5.png\")
A graph of twelve notes tells you nothing you did not already know. A graph of four hundred shows you clusters you never planned, orphan notes you should link or delete, and hub notes that turn out to be the real organising centres of your thinking.
\nBuilding structure before content. You cannot design the right hierarchy for notes you have not written. Start flat and let structure emerge.
Installing too many plugins. Add them to solve problems you have actually hit, not problems a video told you about.
Treating it as an archive. A vault full of clipped articles you never linked or reread is a graveyard, not a knowledge base. One note you wrote in your own words beats ten you pasted.
Splitting into many vaults. Links do not cross vault boundaries. One vault, folders inside it.
Chasing the perfect system. Every month someone publishes a new methodology with an acronym. The people getting real value from Obsidian are mostly running something boring and consistent. Boring and consistent wins.
Over-tagging. If every note carries eight tags, tags stop narrowing anything. A handful you actually filter on beats a taxonomy you admire.
If you want something concrete to follow:
\nDays 1\u20132. Install, create one vault, make the five folders. Write three notes about things you already know well and link them to each other.Days 3\u20137. Turn on daily notes. Capture into them every day, without organising. Do not touch settings.Day 7. First review. Promote two or three captures into real notes. Notice what you keep reaching for.Week 2. Add a literature template. Install Dataview only if you feel the need for an index. Write a note that links to five existing ones.End of week 2. Open the graph for the first time. It will be small, and that is fine.Once the daily loop is automatic, the next steps are richer Dataview queries, Templater for dynamic templates, and if you want to publish, either Obsidian Publish or a static-site generator like Quartz, which renders a vault into a website for free.
\nBut none of that matters until the habit exists. After installation, everything else is elaboration. I hope this helps!
\nI'm submitting this comment in response to NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review. I thank the NIH for the opportunity to respond to the request for information.
\nThe National Institutes of Health must maximize transparency in its reporting of peer review outcomes rather than obscure them with this ill-advised policy proposal. The proposal to withhold numeric scores in favor of broad categories reduces the overall usefulness of the peer review process for both awarded and unawarded grant applicants. Here, not only do I argue that NIH should not move forward with this proposed change to obfuscate quantitative scores, it should instead do much more to improve public accessibility to this information for the purposes of evidence building.\nWithholding exact scores harms researchers and their institutions. A broad \"Competitive\" designation spanning the 26th through 50th percentile does not distinguish an application that narrowly missed funding from one requiring fundamental redesign. Early career researchers may rely on the scoring to determine whether to resubmit, restructure, or redirect their work. Institutions also rely on this information for internal decisionmaking regarding bridge funding, startup extensions, and protected time.\nFurthermore, removing numerical scores from program officers will increase their workload and reduce consistency in funding decisions. Program staff currently rely on calibrated rank ordering. Without it, they may be forced to construct undocumented, ad hoc shadow rankings derived from written critiques. Retaining the final overall impact score and percentile ensures program officers can maintain consistent and documented funding decisions.\nNot only should this current plan be rejected, NIH should actually go in the complete other direction and provide more transparency. As Stuart Buck and I argued in Issues in Science and Technology last year, NIH (and other federal funders) should disclose full scores to grant applicants and the public for all *awarded *and *unawarded *applications. Understanding federal research and development investments requires knowing about both the awarded applications and the unawarded applications. Disclosing data on unfunded applications empowers the research community to evaluate whether agencies are supporting a wide range of ideas or favoring narrow theories. Providing this complete picture helps researchers refine their approaches, avoid duplicating unpromising projects, and discover potential collaborations much earlier.
\nTo capitalize on this transparency, the NIH should work with OMB and GSA to implement a centralized marketplace for highly rated but unfunded grant applications, as recommended by Sandeep Patel, Stuart Buck, Ian Banks, and Amit Gupta here. This system would allow other federal agencies and philanthropic organizations to discover and fund thoroughly vetted research proposals. Transforming unfunded applications into an accessible market for scientific ideas will maximize the return on the existing peer review system and accelerate biomedical innovation.\nThis approach aligns precisely with the principles of Gold Standard Science and the most recent OMB/OSTP joint R&D priorities memo (M-26-16). The M-26-16 guidance calls for rigorously studying, evaluating, and improving how Federal science is funded. Releasing comprehensive data on peer review outcomes provides the exact metascience capabilities required to achieve this objective, allowing agencies to identify research trends and understand the derivative impacts of their funding.\nFinally, the HHS Scientific Integrity Policy mandates that scientific processes remain free from interference or inappropriate influence that undermines impartiality or professional judgment. Providing public accessibility to the scores and outcomes of NIH peer review provides a record that allows Congress, advisory councils, and the public to evaluate the stewardship of taxpayer resources. Fully disclosing peer review scores protects the grant process from undue political interference and ensures funding decisions are demonstrably driven by scientific merit.\nI urge the NIH to reject the proposed categorization scheme, retain the reporting of the final overall impact score and percentile to applicants and program staff, and adopt a framework of complete public disclosure for all peer review outcomes.
\nUnsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research.
\nAnmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf unseren Partnereinrichtungen und auf Veranstaltungen, die sich an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit richten bzw. die offen sind f\u00fcr Angeh\u00f6rige der Wissenschafts- und Kulturerbeeinrichtungen in Berlin. Wir erg\u00e4nzen diese Liste gerne (Info bitte via Mail ans OROB).\n\n
Der Verein \"museum-digital Deutschland\" veranstaltet am 30. Oktober 2026 zum vierten Mal eine bundesweite museum-digital Usertagung. Sie richtet sich an alle Nutzer:innen von museum-digital. Aber auch Interessierte, die bisher noch nicht mit museum-digital arbeiten sind herzlich eingeladen. Es wird Informationen zu den Neuerungen bei museum-digital geben sowie Projektberichte von aktiven Usern. Die Veranstaltung ist kostenfrei und findet online statt. Im Anschluss findet die Mitgliederversammlung f\u00fcr die Mitglieder des Vereins statt. Die Usertagung bietet eine Plattform, bei der Museen ihre Arbeit mit museum-digital vorstellen und sich austauschen k\u00f6nnen.
\nIm Netzwerk Recht und Open Research m\u00f6chten wir Austausch und Vernetzung zu konkreten rechtlichen Fragen bef\u00f6rdern und gemeinsam eine rechtspolitische Interessenvertretung f\u00fcr die offene Forschung initiieren. […]\u00a0Beim ersten Treffen des Netzwerks m\u00f6chten wir einen Raum \u00f6ffnen, um allgemein \u00fcber praktische und strategische Rechtsfragen rund um offene Forschung, Open Access und wissenschaftliches Publizieren zu sprechen und in den Austausch zu kommen.
\nIn dieser Fortbildung lernen Sie die Grundlagen von Open Access und offenen Lizenzen. Das Projekt open-access.network stellt neues Selbstlernmaterial zur Verf\u00fcgung. Es gibt Gelegenheit f\u00fcr \u00dcbungen und Diskussion.
\nForschungsdaten sind ein wesentlicher Bestandteil geowissenschaftlicher Forschung und sollten nach M\u00f6glichkeit offen und nachnutzbar ver\u00f6ffentlicht werden, wobei die beteiligten Forschenden und Institutionen angemessen anerkannt werden sollten. Forschungsdatenrepositorien gew\u00e4hrleisten die langfristige Verf\u00fcgbarkeit von Daten und erm\u00f6glichen deren Identifikation und Zitierbarkeit, beispielsweise durch die Vergabe von DOIs.
\nThis workshop brings together scholars committed to strengthening the reliability, transparency, and cumulative nature of research in the social sciences.
\nDie rasante Verbreitung und die niedrigschwellige Nutzung k\u00fcnstlicher Intelligenz (KI) ver\u00e4ndern nachhaltig die Forschungspraxis an Hochschulen und Wissenschaftseinrichtungen. Die automatisierte Verarbeitung gro\u00dfer Datenmengen sowie ihre Verkn\u00fcpfung und Analyse in k\u00fcrzester Zeit stellen in vielen Disziplinen etablierte Forschungsmethoden in Frage. W\u00e4hrend diese Entwicklungen in datenintensiven F\u00e4chern bereits intensiv diskutiert werden, bleibt bislang offen, welche Konsequenzen sich daraus f\u00fcr kleine F\u00e4cher ergeben.
\nOpen Access ist Gegenstand bibliotheks- und informationswissenschaftlicher Forschung. Auf Grundlage offener Metadaten l\u00e4sst sich empirisch untersuchen, wie sich Publikationsmodelle entwickeln. Die Session beleuchtet zwei sich gegenseitig bedingende Dynamiken: die kommerziell getriebene, jedoch unvollst\u00e4ndige Transformation hybrider Subskriptionszeitschriften sowie die R\u00fcckkehr von community-getragener Diamond-Open-Access-Zeitschriften zu Subskriptions- oder geb\u00fchrenbasierten Modellen.
\nThe 2026 Conference of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information will bring together the international community of signatories, supporters, and other stakeholders, creating a space to advance open research information across institutional contexts and explore how to align policy and practical implementation.
\nDie Veranstaltung bietet einen Raum f\u00fcr Austausch und Diskussion zu offenen Forschungsinformationen in Deutschland. Eingeladen sind Akteure, Einrichtungen, Initiativen und Projekte, die mit Forschungsinformationssystemen, (offenen) Forschungsinformationen und Metadaten arbeiten \u2013 sowohl in der Praxis als auch auf der Ebene von Leitung, Administration, Policy und F\u00f6rderung. Ziel ist es, die teilweise fragmentierten Aktivit\u00e4ten und Communities besser zu vernetzen und offene Forschungsinformationen in der deutschen Wissenschaft \u00fcber institutionelle Grenzen hinweg voranzubringen.
\nDer Workshop \"Beyond Books\" […] beleuchtet die Bedeutung wissenschaftlicher Veranstaltungen f\u00fcr die interne Wissenschaftskommunikation. Neben Einblicken in die von Communities getragenen Plattformen f\u00fcr die Verbreitung von wissenschaftlichen Veranstaltungen wird diskutiert, welche Rolle sie in der Forschungsbewertung spielen und wie sich Metadatenstandards weiterentwickeln lassen. Der Workshop richtet sich an bibliothekarische Fachreferent:innen und hat einen interdisziplin\u00e4ren Zuschnitt. Neben Impulsen zu aktuellen Entwicklungen bietet er Raum f\u00fcr Erfahrungsaustausch und gemeinsame Diskussion dar\u00fcber, wie Bibliotheken in ihrer Rolle als Infrastrukturpartner die Forschung unterst\u00fctzen k\u00f6nnen.
\nUnter dem Leitmotiv der diesj\u00e4hrigen digiS-Konferenz \"Die Zukunft erinnert sich \u2013 Kulturerbe digital weiterdenken. Nachhaltig bewahren, offen teilen\" wollen wir aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven mit unseren G\u00e4sten diskutieren, welche digitalen Infrastrukturen es braucht, um Kulturdaten krisenfest zu machen und handlungsf\u00e4hig zu bleiben. Wie l\u00e4sst sich Digitalisierung in Institutionen nachhaltig umsetzen? Was bedeutet eine FAIRe und offene Bereitstellung von Daten? Welche Rolle k\u00f6nnen KI-Anwendungen f\u00fcr digitale Nachhaltigkeit und Resilienz spielen? Und welche Werkzeuge, Erfahrungen und Kooperationen stehen uns bereits heute zur Verf\u00fcgung, um uns verl\u00e4sslich und l\u00f6sungsorientiert durch die vielf\u00e4ltigen Herausforderungen des digitalen (Kulturdaten-)Lebens zu bringen?
\nweiter zu Dezember 2026 [in K\u00fcrze]
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/pk0be-geb91","guid":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/?p=4365","language":"de","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791763200,"rid":"zpkjd-9ap55","summary":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research. Anmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen.","tags":["Allgemein","Veranstaltungshinweise"],"title":"Veranstaltungshinweise November 2026","updated_at":1791897308,"url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/2026/10/12/veranstaltungshinweise-november-2026/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/007tfm130","name":"Research Software Alliance"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Barker","given":"Michelle","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3623-172X"},{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Hartley","given":"Kim","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4345-9044"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Research Software Alliance"}],"community_id":"79c5ab82-d540-413c-a8cf-3e55d0135a40","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Recent content on Research Software Alliance","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/researchsoft","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/79c5ab82-d540-413c-a8cf-3e55d0135a40/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://www.researchsoft.org/feed.xml","filter":null,"generator":"Hugo","home_page_url":"https://www.researchsoft.org/","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":null,"slug":"researchsoft","status":"active","subfield":"1802","title":"Research Software Alliance","updated":1791849600,"use_api":null},"blog_name":"Research Software Alliance","blog_slug":"researchsoft","content_html":"By Michelle Barker, Kim Hartley
\nThis post is being cross-posted by Better Scientific Software (BSSw), the Institute for Research Software, and the Netherlands eScience Center.
\nResearch software sits behind an increasing share of modern research, but the systems needed to fund, maintain, recognise, govern, and develop it have not kept pace with its importance. Generative AI is adding new urgency: as producing code and other research outputs becomes easier, questions of trust, verification, provenance, maintenance, and long-term stewardship become even more important. Addressing these challenges requires coordination not only among research software engineers, but across the funders, publishers, policymakers, infrastructure providers, trainers, and research organisations that shape the wider research ecosystem.
\nThese interconnected challenges provided the backdrop to the inaugural International Research Software Conference (IRSC). Across two days, discussions ranged from AI challenges, sustainable funding, and software policy to publishing, metascience, skills and training, and international community building. By creating a dedicated space for these communities to connect, exchange practices, and address shared challenges, IRSC advanced dialogue on research software and its intersections with funding, publishing, policy, metascience, skills and training, and generative AI, while building on work underway through ReSA's forums, task forces, and other international collaborations. A recurring message was that many of the challenges facing research software cannot be solved by individual projects or organisations: they require stronger coordination across the international research software community.
\nCo-located with RSECon26 in September 2026 in the UK, IRSC brought together more than 110 in-person and remote participants from across the international research software ecosystem. The program featured 20 talks, 10 lightning talks, 10 Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, and two plenary discussions, along with keynotes from Riva Quiroga (RSE Chile), What We Talk About When We Talk About RSE, and Stefano Zacchiroli (Software Heritage), What Public Code Can Teach Us: Research Software meets Software Research.
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc1_hu_b7d1f0d77341da9.webp\")
A BoF on Evaluating research software funding, led by Neil Chue Hong (Institute for Research Software and University of Edinburgh) and Dario Taraborelli (Renaissance Philanthropy), provided an opportunity to explore approaches to understanding the effectiveness and impact of research software funding.
\nThe conversation continued on the second day, with talks exploring lessons from a new multi-donor fund, Open Source for Science Fund (OS4Science), and approaches to improving how research software funding is allocated.
\nThese discussions connect closely with the Research Software Funders Forum, which brings together funding organisations to share practices, identify common challenges, and explore opportunities for greater coordination around research software funding.
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc2_hu_89f3bd197f0e7709.webp\")
Lauren Cadwallader (PLOS) presented Beyond Computational Biology: Making Code Sharing Policies Work Across Research Fields, exploring how approaches to code-sharing policies can be applied across research disciplines.
\nThis was followed by a BoF on Separating out data and code in open science policies, which introduced a new Working Group (WG) within the Publishing Research Software (PubSoft) Forum focused on improving publisher policies for sharing research software and code. The discussion also connected this work with related initiatives across the research software ecosystem. Jeremy Cohen (Imperial College London) shared insights from the joint ReSA and Research Data Alliance (RDA) WG on Policies in Research Organisations for Research Software (PRO4RS), while Neil Chue Hong brought perspectives from discussions with research funders on code policy.
\nThe new PubSoft WG complements other work underway through the forum, including a WG focused on peer review of code.
\nThe BoF Committing to Sustainable Research Software with ADORE, led by Lieke de Boer (Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development - ZonMw), Marta Teperek (Dutch Research Council - NWO), and Carlos Martinez-Ortiz (Netherlands eScience Center), explored how organisations are putting the recommendations of the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE) into practice, the practical and strategic benefits of signing the declaration, and opportunities to support wider adoption.
\nExamples from signatories, including the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, ELIXIR, and the German Research Foundation (DFG), demonstrated the different ways ADORE can support institutional change.
\nOther sessions highlighted complementary approaches to supporting sustainable research software. In a lightning talk, Ishwar Chandramouliswaran (U.S. National Institutes of Health - NIH) highlighted how the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy is supporting sustainable, open, and interoperable research software ecosystems through investments in best practices, workforce development, infrastructure, standards, and partnerships. While NIH does not currently have a single standalone research software policy, its programs and initiatives collectively promote FAIR software practices, open-source dissemination, sustainable maintenance, and collaborative development.
\nIRSC also highlighted efforts to translate shared principles into practical action across the research ecosystem. The BoF From Principles to Practice: Driving Adoption of FAIR Research Software Across the Ecosystem introduced practical, step-by-step guidelines developed by ReSA's Actionable FAIR4RS task force to help translate the FAIR Principles for Research Software into practice.
\nThese discussions reflect ReSA's broader work to strengthen research software policy internationally. The Research Software Policy (RSP) Forum provides an ongoing space for this work, bringing together policymakers to share practices, address common challenges, and support greater coordination in policy development, implementation, and alignment.
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc3_hu_97a8f69fd45efd6e.webp\")
The Research Software Metascience BoF, led by Wilhelm Hasselbring (Kiel University), Daniel S. Katz (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Rena Bakhshi (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research - TNO), and Simon Hettrick (University of Southampton), brought participants together to consider research software through a metascience lens.
\nThe session built on conversations taking place through the Metascience and Research Software (MaRS) Forum, which have resulted in a paper on Metascience, Research Software, and the Case for Research Software Metascience. The forum is a collaboration of metascience groups, communities, and organisations working to better understand the implications of research software for the research ecosystem and research process. The MaRS Forum provides a space to identify gaps and opportunities in research software metascience, strengthen research software as an area of research, and increase awareness of research examining the role and impact of software across the research ecosystem.
\nInternational perspectives on sustainability challenges and opportunities in research software training networks, a BoF led by Eva Lekkerkerker and Fenne Riemslagh (Netherlands eScience Center), Jeremy Cohen (Imperial College London), and Danny Garside (Digital Research Academy) explored how research software training networks can become more sustainable and scalable, particularly as they remain heavily dependent on individual trainers whose contributions are often under-recognised and difficult to sustain.
\nSamantha Wittke (CSC - IT Center for Science) shared a practical example through CodeRefinery's \"bring your own classroom\" model, which combines shared online teaching with local, community-led support. Extending the discussion to wider support for RSEs, Mike Simpson (Society of Research Software Engineering) highlighted the Society's work to build community, strengthen recognition and career development for RSEs, and create opportunities for greater involvement in the RSE movement.
\nThese themes are central to the Skills and Training for Research Software (STaRS) Forum, which connects organisations and initiatives working to strengthen research software skills and training globally through mapping of current offerings, sharing of best practices in curriculum design, approaches to demonstrating need and impact, and integration into broader research/open science/open source software training initiatives.
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc4_hu_47a7ffce1b5c8172.webp\")
Generative AI (GenAI) was a prominent theme throughout IRSC, with sessions exploring its implications for how research software is developed, maintained, evaluated, and sustained. In her welcome remarks, ReSA Director Michelle Barker highlighted how GenAI is amplifying existing challenges for the research software community, particularly around trust, verification, maintenance, and stewardship. As creating research outputs becomes easier and cheaper, greater investment is needed in the infrastructure and expertise required to verify and sustain them, as well as the shared knowledge, software, and communities on which AI depends. Rather than simply consuming this shared commons, the research community must also sustain and reproduce it, making the impact of GenAI not only a technological challenge, but a collective-action problem.
\nSeveral talks and sessions built on discussions from ReSA and Schmidt Sciences' March 2026 Edinburgh workshop on Research Software Engineering in the Age of Generative AI: Building a Community Vision. The BoF Research Software Engineering: Evolving Competencies, Practices and Interfaces in the Age of Generative AI, led by Stephan Druskat et al., explored evolving RSE competencies, practices, training, and roles in the age of GenAI.
\nOther talks explored the practical implications of this shift. Joseph Shingleton (University of Glasgow) presented the Responsible AI Risk Register for RSE (RAIRR), a community resource for documenting AI risk. Arfon Smith (Schmidt Sciences) explored the evolving RSE role, including opportunities from AI-enabled workflows and interfaces, gaps in evaluation, provenance, and reproducibility, and new demands on software maintainers. This theme was continued in Arfon Smith's keynote at RSECon, Where does the rigor go? Research software and the future of trustworthy science.
\nCarina Kemp (Amazon Web Services - AWS) also contributed to the discussion through AWS Software Development in the Age of AI, sharing practical lessons from AWS's own AI-assisted development journey and exploring how the research software community can collectively establish shared standards, validation practices, and open tooling to ensure AI augments \u2014 rather than undermines \u2014 research integrity.
\nThe talk Next Generation Software Ecosystems for Scientific Computing: Concerns and Calls for Action by Lois Curfmann McInnes (Argonne National Laboratory) and Anshu Dubey (RIKEN Center for Computational Science) explored what is needed to build AI-ready scientific software ecosystems, emphasising three priorities: making trust explicit, designing socio-technically, and investing in judgement. They posed a broader question to the community: What should our communities build together that no single project or institution can accomplish alone?
\nA plenary discussion on Sustaining research software under AI assisted development, led by Colette Bos and Faruk Diblen (Netherlands eScience Center), considered how GenAI is changing code generation and the roles and expectations of different stakeholders in research software engineering, highlighting the importance of machine-readable provenance and careful human verification.
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc5_hu_f816a075515edcc9.webp\")
The inaugural IRSC would not have been possible without the speakers, session chairs, remote facilitators, volunteers, Program Committee, RSECon26 organisers, and the ReSA and Institute for Research Software teams who contributed their time and expertise. We also gratefully acknowledge the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for supporting the scoping report that helped shape IRSC, as well as the initial committee members and stakeholders who helped inform and guide this process.
\nIRSC26 was also made possible through the generous support of our sponsors and partners:
\n\n\n\n![\"My](\"https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2026-10/irsc-sponsors_hu_725b1ca90bfa76e6.webp\")
IRSC highlighted the wide range of work taking place across the international research software community and the importance of greater coordination across these efforts.
\nBy bringing these communities together, the conference created opportunities to strengthen connections, exchange approaches and experiences, and identify areas for future collaboration. We invite you to:
\nWe look forward to building on the momentum of IRSC and continuing to strengthen collaboration across the global research software community.
\nImages: Dan Mogan Photography
\n![\"Book](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/randj.webp\")
\n\nThe thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important question - what if every pair of star-cross'd lovers were reincarnations of the original Verona duo?
\n\nThe essence of tragedy is that the end is unavoidable. You've probably watched Romeo sup poison a hundred times. It is inevitable that Juliet will take her own life in response. Horrific! Yet, not only do you refuse to look away, you gleefully seek it out for another viewing. There's a reason why Tony and Maria cannot escape their destinies in West Side Story - something more than fate is pushing them onto a path that will accept no deviation. The only way through is, of course, death.
\n\nThe Thousand Deaths starts slowly - the first \"act\" felt like an excuse to retell the classic tale in a new setting. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and it is suffused with lovely writing - but it felt a bit \"so what?\"
\n\nAnd then they die.
\n\nAs the acts progress and they get closer to the their thousandth death the pace picks up. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, packed with allusions and references for the careful reader (more on that later). The story is heartbreaking - as well you know - and the author has the perfect knack of keeping her characters on just the right side of histrionics.
\n\nI'd sort of classify this as almost romantasy. There's an undercurrent of sci-fi and fantasy which can't be ignored - but you can also hear the stirring of the violins in the background. Our hero and heroine come together and are violently broken apart for our insatiable entertainment. Do we care about whether that's good for them? What does it feel like to be a Mercutio forever used as a pawn-sacrifice? Does Tybalt resent his forcible reincarnation into a perpetual baddie? Are we culpable for insisting that they strut upon an endless stage just so we can wipe tears from our eyes?
\n\nThe book builds to a fine crescendo. It is heartfelt and utterly tragic. The ending will, I suspect, divide people. I found it mostly satisfactory and completely in keeping with the rest of the story.
\n\nOne final thing - the end notes are superb. They go through all the references you might have missed, explain where certain phrases came from, and point the curious reader to the books which were an inspiration. Too many authors treat their literary allusions as a precious puzzle and jealously guard them. I'm delighted that Caroline Finch is generous enough to share her secrets with us.
\n\nMany thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book will be released in 2027 - I strongly recommend putting it on your pre-order list.
![](\"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/themes/edent-wordpress-theme/info/okgo.php?ID=76683&HTTP_REFERER=DOI\"){kind=small}
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/wkhx2-yfh44","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=76683","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/randj.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791849600,"rid":"tsnbv-x9v44","summary":"The thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important question - what if every pair of star-cross'd lovers were reincarnations of the original Verona duo?","tags":["/etc/","Book Review","NetGalley","Shakespeare"],"title":"Book Review: The Thousand Deaths of Romeo and Juliet - Caroline Finch","updated_at":1791891311,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/book-review-the-thousand-deaths-of-romeo-and-juliet-caroline-finch/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Dingemanse","given":"Mark"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"ac7a6214-f166-416e-9500-caa8343d6285","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Sounding out ideas on language, interaction, and iconicity","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/ideophone","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/ac7a6214-f166-416e-9500-caa8343d6285/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://ideophone.org/feed/atom/","filter":"category:98","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://ideophone.org","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"ideophone","status":"active","subfield":"1203","title":"The Ideophone","updated":1791890809,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"The Ideophone","blog_slug":"ideophone","content_html":"We don’t generally see PhD dissertations as an exciting genre to read, and that is wholly our loss. As the publishing landscape of academia is fast being homogenised, the thesis is one of the last places where we have a chance to see the unalloyed brilliance of up and coming researchers. Let me show you using three examples of remarkable theses I have come across in the past years.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"//ideophone.org/files/image-59.png\")
I didn’t know it was even possible to do a PhD dissertation in graphic novel style. And yet here we are. This is a mindblowing work that (my colleagues can attest) I keep raving about. From the back blurb:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge. Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points.
\n
The title, “Unflattening” reads as a reference to the famous mathematical allegory by Abbott, Flatland: the two-dimensional world where one day A. Square is visited by a being from another dimension. Just as A. Square learns to “unflatten” his world as he gets to know the three-dimensional Sphere visiting him, so the readers of Sousanis’ work are invited to venture out of their conceptual comfort zones and explore a multiplicity of perspectives.
\n\n\n\n(Update: Sousanis notes: “I came up with the word Unflattening early on, and in my planning, figured I should use Flatland – originally at the end, but moved up to front\u2026”)
\n\n\n\nThe published version of this work is a book to have lying around on your desk. It’s always a pleasure to leaf through and there’s always something new to discover.
\n\n\n\nThe full title of this work is “The Equidistribution of Lattice Shapes of Rings of Integers of Cubic, Quartic, and Quintic Number Fields: an Artist’s Rendering”, and if this makes you glaze over, you should skip right to the prologue where it says:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRespected research math is dominated by men of a certain attitude. Even allowing for individual variation, there is still a tendency towards an oppressive atmosphere, which is carefully maintained and even championed by those who find it conducive to success. As any good grad student would do, I tried to fit in, mathematically. I absorbed the atmosphere and took attitudes to heart. I was miserable, and on the verge of failure. The problem was not individuals, but a system of self-preservation that, from the outside, feels like a long string of betrayals, some big, some small, perpetrated by your only support system. When I physically removed myself from the situation, I did not know where I was or what to do. First thought: FREEDOM!!!! Second thought: but what about the others like me, who don't do math the \"right way\" but could still greatly contribute to the community? I combined those two thoughts and started from zero on my thesis. What resulted was a thesis written for those who do not feel that they are encouraged to be themselves
\nHarron 2016:1
![\"\"](\"//ideophone.org/files/image-60.png\")
The whole thing is written in an irreverent, cool and clear writing style, smoothly segueing from “laysplaining” sections aimed at a general audience to more technical parts aimed at mathematicians. No wonder that Harron’s thesis went viral, winning coverage on Mathbabe, Scientific American and even getting its own Wikipedia article. Even for readers without the requisite background in mathematics, this thesis is a wonder to behold and a joy to read.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"//ideophone.org/files/swarmpunk-card.png\")
Swarmpunk! The name alone is a reason to check it out \u2014 and be sure to have a look at the corresponding website. There are many things to admire about this thesis. Content-wise, it is hard to summarise (the mark of a good thesis to my mind). Here’s the author’s own attempt:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDrawing from decades of digital infrastructural history within and beyond science, I will sketch a path by which we might build systems that empower, rather than control us. I will argue a better future for science is not utopian, nor solely dependent on funding and administrative agencies, but something we can organize ourselves. Woven together with my work in ill-defined phonetic categories and distributed experimental systems, I have written a love letter to the power of swarms: how by embracing heterogeneity and rough consensus we might make science more boisterous, creative, and human.
\n
I love the wide-ranging nature of this work all the more because the swarm metaphor does pull things together in a compelling way. Who would have thought that the neuroscience of phonetic categorization in mice could come together with a technical description of peer to peer protocols and trenchant critiques of academia’s infrastructural woes. And yet it all makes sense.
\n\n\n\nThe sheer breadth of topics covered evokes Bruno Latour’s sprawling Actor Network Theory framework and also shares a lot of insights with current approaches to collective intelligence (e.g., all intelligence is collective intelligence). What’s also impressive about this thesis is the way it combines a hard-hitting critique of the current state of academic workflows with concrete tools and constructive proposals to make things better. This makes it a truly excellent example of what Ivan Illich calls counterfoil research.
\n\n\n\nAnd then I haven’t even discussed the type-setting (in lovely Tufte-style), the anarchist easter eggs (like figure captions that say “taken without permission”) and the sharp-witted writing throughout. Read this work and let it broaden your conceptions of how to build a better academia.
\n\n\n\nHere’s another thing I love about these three theses: they all show something of the making process. They don’t present a fully polished surface; they have rough edges and that is entirely okay (especially for a thesis \u2014 but I think this holds in general for the scientific process).
\n\n\n\nSousanis’ Unflattening was revised for publication with Harvard University Press, so I imagine some of the loose ends have been tied up; but it includes, at the end, a set of sketches that document the very beginning of the work, dated to April 14, 2011. Why don’t more theses have this?
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://ideophone.org/files/image-62.png\")
Meanwhile, for Harron, working on the thesis had to find a place next to other momentous life events. In the Acknowledgements, there is a parenthetical aside “I would thank the children, but frankly, they’ve been no help.”. One reason for this is found on the opening page of Chapter 5: a cartoon of the author working on “THESIS (draft)” followed by a panel with an inset where the author says “OW”, and contractions start…
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"//ideophone.org/files/image-61.png\")
Saunders’ Swarmpunk moves from work on phonetic categorization in mice to an unfinished chapter of musings on the topic of language games, and from there even more abruptly to work on a software infrastructure for scientific experimentation and collaboration (check out Autopilot). As they explain:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI had intended to finish my dissertation with an experiment that was the next logical conclusion of the mouse model of phonetics, doing longitudinal mesoscopic calcium imaging of auditory cortex as the phonemes were being learned in order to model the changes in network activity. (…) It comes out of chronological order in the spring of 2021, after my work with Autopilot and a covid-induced awakening of the possibility of public engineering with the People's Ventilator Project[72]. I was restless and not ready to return to basic research while the world was still so broken, and so it was abandoned in favor of the last piece on digital infrastructure. Accordingly, it ends relatively abruptly, without satisfying conclusion. I include it here in its unfinished form, roughly edited, warts and all, as something I intend to pick up perhaps one day when basic science is more possible.
\n
And yet the end product is amazing. Perhaps precisely because of the abrupt transitions, it invites the reader to fill in the gaps, to create those conceptual linkages, to contribute the cognitive work that makes all of science a collective enterprise.
\n\n\n\nMore importantly, it reminds us that we are humans first and foremost, and science is a human enterprise in which the neat plans we may make can be greatly affected by real life events \u2014 as they should.
\n\n\n\nDissertations like these may be rare. But they exist. And by existing, they show that true creativity is still alive in academia. For me personally, this kind of work strengthens my convinction that as supervisors, we need to be serious about ideas and open-minded about form and content. (Perhaps this is why I have always liked my PhD student’s Gwilym Lockwood’s mad MS-Paint skills \u2014 and the Harron-like irreverent style of the opening pages of his 2017 PhD.)
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://ideophone.org/files/Screenshot_20261013-132214.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https://ideophone.org/files/Screenshot_20261013-132235.jpg\")
Today’s PhD projects tend to be considerably less free-form than even 5 or 10 years ago. Today we ask graduate students to write full-blown project proposals, force them to specify their planning in gantt charts, and herd them through series of checkpoints. I understand why this is done, and that it is helpful to some. But I cannot ignore that it is also a machinery for control, arising from management processes built towards verification, certification, and standardization. It is, at base, a stark form of risk-aversion.
\n\n\n\nBut here is the thing about science: it thrives on serendipity. If all risks had been averted and all processes duly followed, it is unlikely that we would have seen these three mindblowing dissertations. Here’s to an academia with room for serendipity!
\n\n\n\nUpdate: turns out Sousanis has a wonderful overview page on alternative forms of scholarship.
\n\n\n\nI'm long overdue in giving you all an update on the BBN Fund. In short: progress is strong. For those who haven't been following along, BBNs are R&D organizations that pursue an ambitious, North Star technical vision, funded by a mix of contracts and grants. Think interactive computing in the late 1950s, autonomous vehicles in the 1980s, or driving the cost of proteins down to 1/1000th the cost of what it is today. If it sounds hard to (a) find researcher-founders talented enough to do such work, and (b) find customers or funders with the technical ambition to fund such big swings, it can be. But over the past 20 months, the young and growing BBN community has proven that they can make it happen on a pretty reliable basis.
A more robust update will follow in a future piece, but below are a few highlights:
The UK's Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) has doubled our cohort size for the BBN launchpad partnership this coming year, enabling our program to support eight ARIA-relevant BBNs and deploy \u00a3800k+ across the cohort. According to public data, BBNs in the ARIA ecosystem have already brought in ~$20\u2013$30 million in aligned, ambitious contracts. This is up from ~$10 million earlier this year, when Janelle Tam and I launched the BBN Fund.
Coefficient Giving has generously given us a $700k grant to continue to find ways to build more BBNs in the modern era.1 This grant marks the first time we can directly fund non-ARIA BBNs, while also covering general operating costs. As discussed in our piece announcing the BBN Fund, we intend to stretch this money exceptionally far through a combination of revenue-sharing agreements, low-interest loans, and grants. We expect that every dollar spent by the fund \u2014 whether on our salaries or deployed directly to BBNs \u2014 will help bring in ~10X the amount spent in contracts and grants. That's been true of our work so far.
We've been doing all of this with an obvious bottleneck: we lack a team of scientific scouts. I have a cadre of world-class, creative technical people I go to for advice (Niko McCarty, Adam Marblestone, ARIA program directors, Ales Flidr, etc.), and I'm helpful in my own way \u2014 I understand BBN founders' technical visions, have some useful contract ideas, and am serviceable at making connections in certain areas \u2014 but I'm an org structures guy, not a true scientist or engineer. I'm looking for technical scouts with the strange and wonderful spark that will take us to the next level.2
The task is, in a nutshell:
Find modern J.C.R. Lickliders who, under the right circumstances, could found BBNs as impactful as the one that built the ARPAnet
Find ambitious, aligned funders and customers who can enable the work
In any area where you have both, if you connect those two dots, we have a BBN. Connect five pairs of dots a year, and that's a pretty fantastic year. Connect ten, and you might be on the way to becoming one of the most important people in the R&D community. I will continue to do everything I can to connect dots myself, but I'd like to become Plan B.
To do this job, I'm looking for technical obsessives. Specifically, people who:
Fiendishly keep up with relatively broad chunks of the academic literature
Find it fun to befriend as many up-and-coming, applied, ambitious scientists as they can
Know who is up to what, from R&D funders to academic labs
Have a crystal-clear sense of what types of work academic labs and VC-funded startups do and don't do, and have a clear sense of where their work is insufficient
Have brains for practical organizational details \u2014 philanthropic funding processes, how biotech contract staging works, the rudiments of equipment procurement, etc.
Essentially, I'm looking for somebody who already does most of what this job entails for the love of the game.
We just raised money from Fulcrum Science to seed our technical scouting capacity. We are open to solving the scouting problem with one full-timer or several part-timers. I'm flexible on the type of person and how we structure the arrangement. Proposed time commitments could range from two hours a month to full-time. A conviction I've developed while obsessing over the history and modern practicalities of building great things in the cracks of the R&D ecosystem is that many great technical minds are underemployed. Some people have exceptional technical knowledge, but don't care to make individual projects their monomaniacal obsession, as academics often must. They might not want to manage people, as deep tech CEOs must. They might find the shape of projects that come through the doors of VC firms a bit technically dull. What I need is for you to be obsessed with finding modern-day Lickliders and the people who might fund them.
If our interests are aligned, I'd like to unleash you. The work arrangement can be shaped to fit the person applying. Excellence at the job at hand is the only thing I will be uncompromising on.
If this sounds like you, email me (gilliam@renphil.org) with your takes on:
Technical areas which could house phenomenal BBNs
Potential customers or funders that might be ideal funding sources for those BBNs
Specific individuals well-suited to founding these orgs3
And feel free to ask me any questions, too.
The original BBN's founders \u2014 Bolt & Beranek, MIT professors \u2014 took pride in \"only making hires that raised the average competence level of the firm.\" This approach brought them great minds like John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and a young Fisher Black (of Black-Scholes fame) as part-time firm collaborators. And it brought them J.C.R. Licklider as a full-timer, who built out the firm's computing efforts from scratch. They understood that to build something like a technology-maximizing firm, nothing was more valuable than practical individuals with the \"strange and wonderful creative spark that makes a good researcher.\" When the firm found that in a person, they went out of their way to build something together.
I look forward to hearing from some of you.
All the best,
Eric
I look forward to hearing from those of you who reach out. And if this is your first exposure to this work, which I'm so romantic about, the grand project of enabling modern-day J.C.R. Lickliders to build their life's work within BBN-like orgs, rather than shoehorning their best ideas into VC-shaped boxes, welcome:) I encourage you to check out any of the pieces below, and send me the best ideas and people that come to mind as you read.
Ideas for Biotechnology BBNs \u2014 Niko McCarty
BBNs Toward Universal Fabricators \u2014 Ivan Jayapurna
An Applied Crop Genetics BBN \u2014 Karen Sarkisyan
\"The Third University of Cambridge\": BBN and the Development of the ARPAnet
An Interview with Chuck Thorpe on CMU: Operating an autonomous vehicle research powerhouse
Edwin Cohn and the Harvard Blood Factory \u2014 Inspiration for a pilot plant BBN
Reach out to me if you'd like more context.
This is a reference to Warren Weaver's modest quote noting that he \"lacked that strange and wonderful creative spark that makes a good researcher.\" That spark is what we hope for in some of our technical scouts. This is, first and foremost, an ideas job.
As a reminder, a complete BBN idea consists of a North Star technical vision, some base of revenue that will fund the work, a founder, and a reasonable story on why that individual can recruit the great minds needed to move the field forward with the resources available to them.
Seit etwa anderthalb Jahren arbeite ich jetzt mit Obsidian, und ganz ehrlich? ich habe die Umstellung nie bereut. (Zu meiner gro\u00dfen \u00dcberraschung ist mein Blogpost dazu einer der meist gelesenen, wenn nicht sogar insgesamt der erfolgreichste Post in diesem Blog. Wow.) Es hat etwa ein halbes Jahr gedauert, bis ich alles zu meiner Zufriedenheit und f\u00fcr meine Zwecke eingerichtet hatte, aber ich habe schon lange nichts mehr an meinem Setup ge\u00e4ndert. Wahrscheinlich sollte ich mal etwas aufr\u00e4umen, aber dazu ist gerade keine Zeit\u2026
Im folgenden stelle ich Euch kurz vor, welche Erweiterungen (Plugins) f\u00fcr mich wirklich unverzichtbar geworden sind.
![\"Screenshot](\"https://winoda.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Obsidian-Plugins-1024x788.jpg\")
Eines der wichtigsten Plugins \u00fcberhaupt: \"Git\" von Vinzent: https://github.com/vinzent03/obsidian-git integriert einen vollautomatisierten Git-Workflow in den Obsidian vault.
Vorteil: regelm\u00e4\u00dfiges Backup aller \u00c4nderungen. Mir sind schon zu oft Dateien verloren gegangen, oder Computer kaputt, oder kein Zugang mehr zum Arbeitsrechner\u2026.
Nat\u00fcrlich braucht man irgendwo einen Git-Account, aber die sind (noch) kostenlos und einfach zu bekommen (z. B. bei GitHub, GitLab, oder bei der europ\u00e4ischen Alternative Codeberg). Das Setup war gut dokumentiert, und einmal aufgesetzt habe ich nie wieder einen Gedanken daran verschwendet.
Faktisch habe ich zwei Git-Projekte aufgesetzt, eins f\u00fcr meinen gesamten Vault als Backup, und eins f\u00fcr nur den Ordner mit den Skript-Dateien f\u00fcr meine Online-Kurse, die ich mit externen Peer-Reviewer:innen teilen wollte. Kommentare und Feedback konnten wir \u00fcber Git-Issues und ein-zwei Video-Calls abwickeln. Das lief gut, aber nat\u00fcrlich hilft es, ein grunds\u00e4tzliches Verst\u00e4ndnis von Versionskontrollsystemen zu haben.
Full disclosure: ich kann (und m\u00fcsste/sollte) zu Git und den entsprechenden Workflows selbst noch eine ganze Menge lernen, aber f\u00fcr die genannten Zwecke reicht mein Wissen vollst\u00e4ndig aus. (Eine alte Version aus dem Git-Verlauf wieder herzustellen k\u00f6nnte ich aus dem Stand nicht, aber es ist tr\u00f6stlich zu wissen, dass es ginge. Irgendwie. Das kann ich dann herausfinden, wenn es so weit ist.)
Ein absoluter Game-Changer ist f\u00fcr mich der relativ neue \"Project Manager for Obsidian\" von StepanKropachev: https://github.com/stepankropachev/obsidian-pm.
Endlich kann ich die \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber meine Aufgaben behalten, ohne andauernd das Tool wechseln zu m\u00fcssen!
(Disclaimer: bisher nutze ich ihn haupts\u00e4chlich in meinem privaten vault, um die anfallenden Aufgaben bei der Sanierung unseres Hauses nachzuverfolgen. F\u00fcr die aktuellen Aufgaben im Rahmen des WiNoDa-Projekts haben wir hier im Team andere L\u00f6sungen gefunden, und ich denke, das Plugin w\u00fcrde nicht ausreichen, um ein gro\u00dfes, verteiltes Team zu koordinieren. F\u00fcr meine eigenen Aufgaben wird dieses Plugin mir die Arbeit jedoch erheblich erleichtern und mir helfen, den \u00dcberblick dar\u00fcber zu behalten, wo ich gerade stehe.)
Project Manager erm\u00f6glicht es, Aufgaben, Unteraufgaben, Meilensteine, Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten, Zeiterfassung etc direkt im Vault zu pflegen. Die Ansicht kann tabellarisch, als Gantt-Chart oder \u00fcber Kanban Board erfolgen. Das Board ist individuell konfigurierbar, das Gantt-Chart intuitiv anpassbar, man kann Personen und tags vergeben und der Erledigungsstatus wird farbig angepasst. Alles was ich brauche, ohne Kontextwechsel, offline und lokal. Hier erz\u00e4hlt der Entwickler selbst, was er gemacht hat: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1sg3jcw/i_built_a_native_project_manager_for_obsidian/
Der \"Project Manager\" erg\u00e4nzt f\u00fcr mich das Plugin \"Task List Kanban\" von ErikaRS (https://github.com/erikars/task-list-kanban), welches in Dokumenten erstellte Aufgaben (formatiert als Checkliste und mit einem entsprechenden hashtag versehen) automatisch in ein Kanban-Board \u00fcberf\u00fchrt. Das ist \u00fcberaus praktisch, um bspw. aus verschiedenen Protokoll-Dokumenten, Gespr\u00e4chsnotizen oder konzeptionellem Geschreibsel alle ToDos an einer zentralen Stelle zusammenzuf\u00fchren. Da es ordnerbasiert funktioniert, wird es aber zuk\u00fcnftig einfach nur noch im Protokoll-Ordner leben.
\nEine Herausforderung (f\u00fcr mich) bleibt der Export in ein Format, mit dem \"andere\" Menschen arbeiten k\u00f6nnen. Auch wenn Markdown sich immer mehr verbreitet \u2013 Word bzw. docx bleibt das am weitesten verbreitete Textverarbeitungsprogramm/Textformat. Und das default-Exportformat von Obsidian ist PDF \u2013 das ist nicht immer ideal. Mit dem Plugin \"Enhancing Export\" von mokeyish (https://github.com/mokeyish/obsidian-enhancing-export) kann jedes Obsidian file in Word, verschiedene Markdown flavours, HTML, Latex etc exportiert werden.
Zuvor muss man allerdings auf dem lokalen Rechner Pandoc installieren. Ich fand das Aufsetzen ein bisschen komplizierter, aber eigentlich war alles gut erkl\u00e4rt.
Ich exportiere h\u00e4ufig Dokumente als .docx, um sie in Word zu layouten. Nicht immer werden alle Formate richtig erkannt, man sollte also schon sorgf\u00e4ltig pr\u00fcfen, ob \u00dcberschriften, Listen etc richtig \u00fcbernommen wurden. Aber dann ist es f\u00fcr mich einfacher, das Dokument zu formatieren, Farben, Logos, Seitenzahlen etc hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und vor allem mit anderen zur Weiterbearbeitung zu teilen.
Ich bin immer noch sicher, dass das mit Hilfe von css-basierten Formatvorlagen auch direkt in Obsidian geht , aber ich hatte bisher keine Zeit, mich damit zu besch\u00e4ftigen. Mache ich irgendwann.
Kleinere Plugins, die es mir etwas angenehmer machen:
\nPlugins, die ich bisher nicht viel genutzt habe, von denen ich mir aber \u2013 bei anderen Aufgabenstellungen \u2013 viel verspreche:
\nMathLive und BulkRename habe ich nur einmal benutzt \u2013 um eine Formel besser darstellen zu k\u00f6nnen bzw. um einen ganzen Ordner voll Dateinamen zu standardisieren. Das war hilfreich, aber ich brauche das nicht oft.
Nun denn. Nutzt Ihr auch Obsidian? Wie habt Ihr Euer Setup konfiguriert?
https://obsidian.md/\nhttps://community.obsidian.md/search?type=plugin\n\n- \"Git\" von Vinzent: https://github.com/vinzent03/obsidian-git\n- \"Project Manager for Obsidian\" von StepanKropachev: https://github.com/stepankropachev/obsidian-pm\n- \"Task List Kanban\" von ErikaRS: https://github.com/erikars/task-list-kanban\n- \"Enhancing Export\" von mokeyish: https://github.com/mokeyish/obsidian-enhancing-export\n- \"Better word count\" von lukeleppan: https://github.com/lukeleppan/better-word-count\n- \"Auto Note Mover\" von farux: https://github.com/farux/obsidian-auto-note-mover\n- \"Update modified date\" von alangrainger: https://github.com/alangrainger/obsidian-frontmatter-modified-date\n- \"Advanced slides\" von MSzturc: https://github.com/mszturc/obsidian-advanced-slides\n- \"Zotero Integration\": https://github.com/obsidian-community/obsidian-zotero-integration Guest Blog Post by Anne Betterman and Felix J. Augustin
\n\n\n\nSometimes, the smallest marks on a fossil bone can tell us some of the most interesting stories. In our recent study, published in Fossil Record, we investigated \"bioerosion\" \u00a0\u2013 traces left by organisms during feeding and other activities \u2013 on fossil bones from Upper Cretaceous deposits of Ha\u0163eg Basin in Romania. These traces gave us a new perspective on what happened to animal remains and on how the ancient ecosystem of Ha\u0163eg Island functioned.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fig_1d-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
Although bioerosion can provide important information about ancient ecosystems, it is still rarely studied in detail. Precious few previous studies had documented bioerosion from the Ha\u0163eg Basin, the principal area for fossils from Ha\u0163eg Island, but only from a limited number of bones and localities. We therefore wanted to figure out how common and widespread bioerosion was across the Ha\u0163eg Basin, and whether differences in taphonomy, local fauna, and depositional environments influenced its occurrence.
\n\n\n\nTo investigate this, the extensive Upper Cretaceous vertebrate fossil collection of the University of Bucharest was inspected. We discovered numerous new examples of bioerosion on dinosaur and turtle remains, coming from several different localities and geological formations. This allowed us to compare traces from different parts of the Ha\u0163eg Basin and from different depositional environments.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fig_2d-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
What stood out to us most was how widespread these traces turned out to be. We found evidence of bioerosion across a larger geographical and temporal range than previously recognized. Even more striking was the similarity between different environments, including braided and meandering river systems and floodplains, as well as generally well drained and more poorly drained environments.
\n\n\n\nIt appears that despite these environment-related differences, the overall patterns of carcass decomposition were remarkably consistent. This suggests that similar processes may have affected carcasses on Ha\u0163eg Island both across different environments and throughout millions of years.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fig_3d.jpg?ssl=1\")
The traces also provide information about the organisms that interacted with the carcasses, and which most often fail to be preserved on their own. We documented several types of bioerosion, including grooves, pits and boreholes. Some of these traces were probably produced by multituberculate mammals, skin beetles or termites, revealing that a range of organisms fed on the carcasses of different dinosaurs and turtles after their death.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fig_4d-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
These findings provide valuable insights into the functioning of the ecosystem of Ha\u0163eg Island, as death and decomposition are important ecological processes. Once an animal died, its carcass became a resource for other organisms. The traces preserved on fossil bones provide a rare record of these interactions, which usually remain cryptic.
\n\n\n\nWith this research, we hope to add another layer to our understanding of ancient Ha\u0163eg Island. By looking beyond the spectacular dinosaurs and paying attention to the marks left on their bones, we can develop a more complete picture of how this Late Cretaceous ecosystem functioned.
\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https://i0.wp.com/blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/fig_5d-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
In the end, our study shows that fossils can represent much more than just the remains of individual animals. A small groove, pit or borehole found on them may record an ecological interaction that took place millions of years ago. These seemingly \"boring\" traces are therefore anything but boring \u2013 they can help us understand not only how animals lived on Ha\u0163eg Island, but also what happened after they died.
\n\n\n\nOriginal source:
\n\n\n\nBettermann A, Csiki-Sava Z, Bocherens H, Augustin FJ (2026) Not only boring issues: bioerosion on bones from the Upper Cretaceous of the Ha\u0163eg Basin (Romania) and the implications for carcass decomposition on Ha\u0163eg Island. Fossil Record 29(2): 675-705. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.29.189421
\n\n\n\nFor more articles on palaeontology, visit the\u00a0Fossil Record\u00a0website and follow the journal on\u00a0BlueSky\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook.
\n\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/dbp35-yrt13","guid":"https://blog.pensoft.net/?p=21218","image":"https://blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/SciComm-PR-2026-Instagram-2026-10-12T173846.014.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791849600,"rid":"bj0jd-kpp09","summary":"Tweet Guest Blog Post by Anne Betterman and Felix J. Augustin Sometimes, the smallest marks on a fossil bone can tell us some of the most interesting stories. In our recent study, published in Fossil Record , we investigated \"bioerosion\" \u2013 traces left by organisms during feeding and other activities \u2013 on fossil bones from Upper Cretaceous deposits of Ha\u0163eg Basin in Romania.","tags":["Fossil Record","Bioerosion","Cretaceous","Dinosaur","Fossil"],"title":"Not Only Boring Issues: What Fossil Bones Reveal About cretaceous Ha\u0163eg Island","updated_at":1791878415,"url":"https://blog.pensoft.net/2026/10/13/not-only-boring-issues-what-fossil-bones-reveal-about-cretaceous-hateg-island/","version":"v1"}},{"document":{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/046ak2485","name":"Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Fischer","given":"Georg","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5620-5759"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"52aefd81-f405-4349-b080-754395a5d8b2","created":1694476800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":null,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/oaberlin","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/52aefd81-f405-4349-b080-754395a5d8b2/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/feed/atom/","filter":null,"generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin","issn":null,"language":"deu","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"oaberlin","status":"active","subfield":"1802","title":"Open Research Blog Berlin","updated":1791896983,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Open Research Blog Berlin","blog_slug":"oaberlin","content_html":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research.
\nAnmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf unseren Partnereinrichtungen und auf Veranstaltungen, die sich an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit richten bzw. die offen sind f\u00fcr Angeh\u00f6rige der Wissenschafts- und Kulturerbeeinrichtungen in Berlin. Wir erg\u00e4nzen diese Liste gerne (Info bitte via Mail ans OROB).\n\n
Wie gehen Einrichtungen des Kulturerbes mit den Zeugnissen der Vergangenheit um? Nutzen sie diese, um bestimmte Sichtweisen historischer Entwicklungen zu st\u00fctzen, oder \u00fcberlassen sie die Bewertung den Nutzenden und erm\u00f6glichen vor allem den Zugang zu den Quellen? W\u00e4hrend Museen mit kuratierten Ausstellungen h\u00e4ufig st\u00e4rker interpretierend arbeiten, verstehen sich Archive und Bibliotheken traditionell eher als Einrichtungen, die sich auf den Zugang zu ihren Best\u00e4nden konzentrieren. Diese Rollenverteilung ger\u00e4t jedoch unter Druck, wenn es um ein schwieriges Erbe \u2013 etwa rassistische oder antisemitische Zeugnisse \u2013 geht: Archive werden kritisiert, wenn sie scheinbar ungefilterten Zugang gew\u00e4hren, w\u00e4hrend zugleich geschichtspolitische Eingriffe in Kulturerbeeinrichtungen kontrovers diskutiert werden.
\n2026 findet die dritte Ausgabe des gro\u00dfen OER-Fachtags von ORCA.nrw statt. Freuen Sie sich \u00fcber den Tag hinweg auf eine spannende Keynote, Projektvorstellungen, Workshops und viel Austausch & Vernetzung!
\nIm Vortrag wird, ankn\u00fcpfend an das Blockchain-Projekt f\u00fcr digitale Zeugnisse, die EUDI-Wallet thematisiert. Die Historie der Entwicklung dieser digitalen Brieftasche auf EU-Ebene wird vorgestellt und die Funktionen und M\u00f6glichkeiten sowie Detailinformationen zur Sicherheit werden erl\u00e4utert. Der aktuelle Stand der Entwicklung wird betrachtet und in Form einer Demo wird die Nutzung an einem konkreten Beispiel veranschaulicht. Nach einem Blick auf zuk\u00fcnftige Entwicklungen im Bereich \"Digitaler Identit\u00e4ten\", wie z. B. Post-Quanten-Verschl\u00fcsselung oder Alternative Biometrische Identifikationsverfahren (AuBi) schlie\u00dft der Abend mit Raum f\u00fcr Diskussionen \u00fcber die Technologie und deren Nutzung.
\nDer Einsatz von KI Technologien erstreckt sich zunehmend auf zentrale Bereiche politischer Steuerung, von der \u00f6ffentlichen Verwaltung und der Umweltpolitik bis hin zu Grenzregimen und wirtschaftlicher Regulierung. Dabei ver\u00e4ndern sie nicht nur Verfahren; es verschieben sich Machtkonstellationen, Verantwortung und politische Handlungsspielr\u00e4ume. Das Symposium mit \u00f6ffentlicher Paneldiskussion diskutiert KI als systemische Herausforderung f\u00fcr Demokratie und Rechtsstaat. Die Veranstaltung bietet kurze Einf\u00fchrungen in verschiedene Schwerpunkte unserer Forschung und erm\u00f6glicht eine kollaborative Plattform zur Diskussion der systemischen Kosten algorithmischer Governance f\u00fcr demokratische Strukturen. Dies schafft einen offenen Raum f\u00fcr Austausch mit politischen Entscheidungstr\u00e4ger*innen, Vertreter*innen von NGOs, Forschenden sowie allen, die an der Zukunft einer digitalen Gesellschaft interessiert sind.
\nDas Digitale ist ein gro\u00dfes Versprechen: Physische R\u00e4ume und pers\u00f6nliche Speichermedien scheinen ganz \u00fcberfl\u00fcssig zu werden, die Cloud soll ortsunabh\u00e4ngigen, schnellen Zugriff und unbegrenzten Speicherplatz erm\u00f6glichen. Aber was kostet das, welche L\u00f6sungen sind sicher und umweltvertr\u00e4glich?\u00a0Gemeinsam mit bestandserhaltenden Einrichtungen und Vertreter:innen aus Wissenschaft und Forschung wollen wir das Versprechen des Digitalen \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen und konstruktive Vorschl\u00e4ge zur longue dur\u00e9e des digitalen Erbes entwickeln. Es sprechen u.v. a.: Frank Scholze (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek), Richard Ovenden (Bodleian Library Oxford) und Petra Gehring (Rat f\u00fcr Informationsinfrastrukturen).
\nDas Open Science Forum Mitteldeutschland 2026 bringt am 5. Oktober Interessierte zu einem offenen Austausch \u00fcber Open Science als Gestaltungsaufgabe zusammen. Wir widmen uns der Frage, welche Rolle wissenschaftsunterst\u00fctzende Einrichtungen spielen, wenn es um neue Ans\u00e4tze in der Forschungsbewertung, nachhaltige Infrastrukturen und digitale Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t im Spannungsfeld geopolitischer Entwicklungen geht.
\nIn Archiven, Bibliotheken und anderen Ged\u00e4chtniseinrichtungen lagern bundesweit gef\u00e4hrdete Originale, die Meinungsvielfalt, Rechtsordnungen, historische Entwicklungen und politisches Handeln dokumentieren. Der Erhalt dieser \u00dcberlieferungen ist Grundvoraussetzung f\u00fcr eine quellen- und faktenbasierte Forschung, eine historische Aufarbeitung sowie die Sichtbarmachung gesellschaftlicher Mehrstimmigkeit und Diskurse. Originalerhalt ist grundlegender Bestandteil der Informationssicherung und ein wichtiger Beitrag zu einer lebendigen, urteilsf\u00e4higen und wehrhaften Demokratie \u2013 insbesondere angesichts der zunehmenden Bedrohung durch hybride Desinformation und andere demokratiegef\u00e4hrdende Entwicklungen.
\nDie FDM-Sprechstunde Humanities@NFDI ist eine Online-Beratung f\u00fcr Studierende, Forschende oder Mitarbeitende aus Forschungs- und Sammlungsinstitutionen zu allen Fragen rund um das Forschungsdatenmanagement. Expert:innen aus den geisteswissenschaftlichen NFDI-Konsortien NFDI4Memory, NFDI4Culture, NFDI4Objects und Text+ stehen f\u00fcr Ihre Fragen zu allen Themen rund ums Forschungsdatenmanagement bereit. Bei Bedarf k\u00f6nnen Einzelgespr\u00e4che in Breakoutr\u00e4umen vertieft werden.
\nIncreasing consolidation and commercial control over all aspects of knowledge comes at a cost. This year's theme challenges us to consider the financial, human, and environmental costs of creating, sharing, and sustaining knowledge\u2014particularly when these costs are driven by private rather than public interests. Last year's theme of \"Who owns our knowledge?\" reflected on the reality of commercial ownership of knowledge. This year's theme will reckon with the costs of that reality and avenues for reclaiming control of these systems meant to serve the public interest.
\nIn diesem Workshop lernen die Teilnehmenden datenschutzkonforme KI-Anwendungen und Einsatzm\u00f6glichkeiten kennen, die neue Wege f\u00fcr die Nachnutzung von Forschungsdaten erm\u00f6glichen und zur Verbesserung von Datenqualit\u00e4t, Metadatenverf\u00fcgbarkeit und Zug\u00e4nglichkeit beitragen. Mithilfe konkreter Anwendungsf\u00e4lle aus der Forschung werden die rechtssicheren Einsatzm\u00f6glichkeiten der KI im Datenlebenzyklus vorgestellt.
\nFaires, wissenschaftsgeleitetes Open-Access-Publizieren gewinnt zunehmend an Bedeutung, nicht zuletzt durch die Priorisierungsagenda der BUA-Einrichtungen zur Umsetzung des Open-Science-Leitbilds und das Positionspapier zu Open Research der Berliner Landesinitiative. Doch welche Alternativen zu etablierten, oft kommerziellen Publikationswegen gibt es eigentlich, und wie funktionieren sie? In diesem einst\u00fcndigen Lunch Meeting stellen wir Ihnen ausgew\u00e4hlte Orte und Tools f\u00fcr digitales Publizieren vor.
\nDer Workshop f\u00fchrt in die Grundfunktionen von OpenRefine ein und zeigt an konkreten Anwendungsf\u00e4llen, wie Forschende tabellarische Datens\u00e4tze bereinigen, strukturieren und anreichern k\u00f6nnen. Dabei werden auch geskriptete Bearbeitungsschritte sowie der Import und Export verschiedener Datenformate (CSV, XML, JSON) behandelt. OpenRefine erm\u00f6glicht nicht nur einen schnellen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber gro\u00dfe Datens\u00e4tze, sondern hilft vor allem bei heterogenen und historisch gewachsenen Datens\u00e4tze, die oft inkonsistente Metadaten aufweisen.
\nDer Workshop gibt einen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber ELN-Konzepte, zeigt relevante Forschungsdatenmanagement-Aspekte auf und bietet eine praktische Einf\u00fchrung.
\nDer Aktionstag \"Forschungsdaten@BUA\" l\u00e4dt erstmals Forschende der Berlin University Alliance herzlich ein, \u00fcber den Umgang mit Forschungsdaten ins Gespr\u00e4ch zu kommen, sich auszutauschen und zu vernetzen. Ziel ist es, Best Practices sichtbar zu machen, Erfahrungen auszutauschen und den Dialog \u00fcber den Umgang mit Forschungsdaten \u00fcber die vier BUA-H\u00e4user hinweg auszubauen.
\nIm Rahmen dieses Hands-on-Workshops werden Konzepte zum effizienten, reproduzierbaren und nachvollziehbaren Arbeiten mit Forschungsdaten vermittelt. Ziel ist es, die Teilnehmenden mit verschiedenen Werkzeugen vertraut zu machen und das Bewusstsein f\u00fcr Computational Thinking, Automatisierung sowie die Optimierung eigener Arbeitsprozesse zu sch\u00e4rfen.
\nAm 23.10.2026 von\u202f9\u201316:30\u202fUhr diskutieren Expert*innen in Berlin-Mitte im Workshop \"Resilienz & Sicherheit von wissenschaftlichen Informationsinfrastrukturen\" \u00fcber Risiken und Chancen f\u00fcr offene Forschung, digitale Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t und Dual\u2011Use. Vortr\u00e4ge, Panels und Praxis\u2011Workshops zu MINT und Digital Humanities geben Tipps zum Datenschutz, zu Open\u2011Source\u2011L\u00f6sungen und zum Aufbau resilienter Daten\u2011Infrastrukturen.\u00a0
\nIm Forschungsalltag stehen Forschende regelm\u00e4\u00dfig vor urheberrechtlichen Fragen: Welche Inhalte darf ich in meiner Arbeit verwenden? Unter welchen Bedingungen kann ich Daten und Materialien offen teilen? Wie gehe ich mit KI-Tools und deren Trainingsdaten rechtssicher um? Dieser Workshop bietet praxisnahe Orientierung f\u00fcr den sicheren Umgang mit gesch\u00fctzten Inhalten und Lizenzen in der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit.
\nIn our three-part workshop series, we explore the relationship between the technical aspects, practical applications and critical reflection of the use of AI in research data management. Participants will learn about various AI tools and use cases for research data management, test, and develop criteria for the meaningful and responsible use of AI in their own work.
\nweiter zu November 2026
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/pzvzm-f9w08","guid":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/?p=4297","language":"de","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1788220800,"rid":"208kg-aed59","summary":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research. Anmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen.","tags":["Veranstaltungshinweise"],"title":"Veranstaltungshinweise Oktober 2026","updated_at":1791876612,"url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/2026/09/01/veranstaltungshinweise-oktober-2026/","version":"v1"}}],"items":[{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/0130frc33","name":"University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Eshun","given":"Solomon","url":"https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1128-4149"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"22d41343-8a53-4671-9643-0efbface1b2d","created":1787184000,"current_feed_url":null,"description":null,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/solomoneshun","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/22d41343-8a53-4671-9643-0efbface1b2d/logo","feed_format":"application/rss+xml","feed_url":"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/index.xml","filter":null,"generator":"Quarto","home_page_url":"https://solomoneshun.com/posts/","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"solomoneshun","status":"active","subfield":"1804","title":"Solomon Eshun","updated":1791864000,"use_api":null},"blog_name":"Solomon Eshun","blog_slug":"solomoneshun","content_html":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI have written a lot of notes that I never saw again. Not because I deleted them. They were still somewhere on my computer, carefully saved inside a folder with a sensible name. The problem was remembering that they existed when I actually needed them. That is the strange thing about most note-taking systems. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to store information and surprisingly little time thinking about how we will find our way back to it.
\nYou read something interesting. You write a note. You choose a folder. Maybe you add a tag. Then you move on. Months later, you are working on something related and vaguely remember, I know I wrote something about this before. So you search, open a handful of notes that are not quite right. Eventually, you either find it after far too much searching or give up and recreate the idea from scratch. The note is still there. The problem is that it just never found its way back into your thinking.
Obsidian approaches note-taking differently. Instead of treating notes as isolated documents that need to be carefully filed away, Obsidian encourages you to think about how ideas relate to one another. Suppose I am reading about confounding and create a note about it. Somewhere in that note, I mention g-computation. I can simply wrap g-computation in double brackets: [[g-computation]]. Those double brackets create a link. If I already have a note called g-computation, clicking the link takes me there. If I do not, Obsidian lets me create one. More importantly, the relationship works in the other direction too. When I eventually open my g-computation note, I can see that the confounding note links back to it. As I keep reading and writing, these connections accumulate and gradually becomes a network of ideas.
There is another reason I became comfortable with Obsidian. Your notes are simply Markdown files stored in an ordinary folder on your computer. They are not locked inside a proprietary database that only one application understands. Open your Obsidian vault in Finder or File Explorer and your notes are right there as .md files. You can open them with another text editor, move them, back them up, or manage them however you want. If you stopped using Obsidian tomorrow, your notes would still be yours and would still be readable.
Obsidian is also free to use. The features that make the application powerful, including plugins, themes, graph view, linking, and multiple vaults, are available without paying for a subscription. There are paid services such as Obsidian Sync for syncing your vault across devices and Obsidian Publish for publishing notes to the web, but they are optional conveniences. Check obsidian.md/pricing for current numbers, since they change.
\nAnd that brings me to this guide. I use Obsidian mainly for academic and research work, so that is the perspective I will use throughout this guide. You will see examples involving papers, methods, concepts, research projects, and ideas I want to revisit later. But there is nothing inherently academic about the system. The same approach can work for work projects, meeting notes, books, personal writing, recipes, or almost anything else you want to keep and connect.
\nI also do not want this to become one of those Obsidian tutorials where we install twenty-seven plugins, create fourteen folders, design an elaborate tagging taxonomy, and spend three hours building a system for taking notes before we have actually taken a note. We are going to start small. We will install Obsidian, create a vault, understand the few pieces of Markdown you actually need, create our first linked notes, and develop a simple structure for organizing them. From there, we can add templates, daily notes, plugins, backups, and some of the more powerful features, but only when there is a reason for them.
\nDownload Obsidian from obsidian.md for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android. There is no account to create: the app opens straight into a prompt asking what you want to do. Choose Create new vault, give it a name, and pick where it lives on disk.
A vault is a folder. Inside it are .md text files and a hidden .obsidian/ subfolder holding your settings. That is the entire architecture. Open the folder in Finder or Explorer right now and you will see your notes sitting there as ordinary files.
Open your vault and you will see a mostly blank window. Here is what you are looking at.
\n
On the left, the file explorer lists every note in your vault; folders here are real folders on disk. In the middle, the editor is where you write. On the right, the graph view shows your notes as dots and their links as lines.
A handful of shortcuts cover most of what you will do:
\n| Shortcut | \nWhat it does | \n
|---|---|
Ctrl/Cmd + N | \nNew note | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + O | \nQuick switcher \u2014 jump to any note by name | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + P | \nCommand palette \u2014 every command, searchable | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + E | \nToggle editing / reading view | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + F | \nSearch across the whole vault | \n
Ctrl/Cmd + click | \nOpen a link in a new pane | \n
If you learn only one, make it Ctrl/Cmd + O.
Type three or four letters and the note you want is usually the top hit. Once you pass a few hundred notes this becomes how you navigate almost exclusively, and the file explorer turns into decoration.
\nObsidian notes are Markdown, but you rarely have to think about syntax. You type a few characters and the formatting appears live.
\n
The syntax you will actually use day to day is small:
\n# Heading 1\n## Heading 2\n\n**bold** *italic* `inline code`\n\n- bullet\n- [ ] unchecked task\n- [x] completed task\n\n> blockquote\n\n[[Link to another note]]\n[[Link to another note|shown as this text]]\n![[Embed another note entirely]]\n\n#tag #nested/tagTwo Obsidian-specific ones are worth calling out. The pipe in [[Note|display text]] lets the link read naturally in a sentence while still pointing at the right file. And ![[Note]] with a leading exclamation mark embeds the whole note inline rather than linking to it (useful for pulling a definition into a summary without duplicating it).
This is the part that matters. Create a note called Confounding and write a couple of sentences. Somewhere in the text, type two opening square brackets: [[.
A dropdown appears. Start typing G-computation. Even though that note does not exist yet, press Enter \u2014 Obsidian creates it the moment you click through.
Now open G-computation and look at the Linked mentions panel.
You typed one link. You got two. That is the whole trick, and it compounds: every time you link a new note to an old one, the old note gets richer without you touching it.
\nNew users spend their first week building an elaborate folder hierarchy and their second week discovering it does not fit. Obsidian gives you three organising tools, and they answer different questions.
\n
Folders answer where does this live? A note sits in exactly one. Use them for broad, stable categories. Three to six top-level folders is plenty. Tags answer what kind of note is this? Type #method or #toread anywhere in a note. A note can carry many, which makes tags good for status and type \u2014 things that cut across folders. Nested tags like #status/draft give you a little hierarchy without much cost. Links answer what is this related to? These do the real work. Folders and tags are coarse; links are specific.
The failure mode is over-investing in the first and under-using the third. A flat vault with good links is far more useful than a beautiful eleven-level folder tree with none.
\nHere is a starter structure:
\nmy-vault/\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Daily/ # one note per day, capture inbox\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Notes/ # the permanent, linked notes\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Projects/ # one note per active project\n\u251c\u2500\u2500 Reading/ # books, papers, articles\n\u2514\u2500\u2500 Templates/ # reusable note skeletonsLet Notes/ grow flat and link heavily inside it.
Go to Settings \u2192 Core plugins and enable Daily notes. In its options, set the folder to Daily/ and the date format to YYYY-MM-DD so the files sort correctly.
The daily note is a capture inbox, not an archive. Anything that occurs to you during the day lands here with no organising: meeting notes, half-ideas, a paper someone recommended, a problem you hit in your analysis. The bar for writing something down should be almost zero.
\nLater, you promote the few things that earned it into real notes in Notes/, with claim-style titles and links. Most of what you capture will not earn it, and that is the point. The inbox absorbs the noise so your permanent notes stay signal.
Turning on the Calendar community plugin gives you the month view shown above, which makes it easy to jump back to \"that Tuesday when the model broke.\"
Enable the Templates core plugin and point it at Templates/. Then create a file there like this:
# {{title}}\n\n**Source:**\n**Date:** {{date}}\n\n## Summary\n\n## Key points\n-\n\n## Links\n-Now Ctrl/Cmd + P \u2192 \"Insert template\" drops that skeleton into any new note.
The payoff is not the typing you save. It is that every literature note has the same shape, so six months later you can skim thirty of them quickly, and a Dataview query can pull fields out of them reliably. Two or three templates is usually the right number: one for literature, one for meetings, one for projects.
\nCommunity plugins live in Settings \u2192 Community plugins \u2192 Browse. You will need to turn off Restricted Mode first.
\nResist installing twenty of them. Each is a thing that can break, conflict, or need migrating, and the most common way to end up with a broken vault and no notes in it is to spend week one configuring instead of writing. Add plugins to solve problems you have actually hit.
\nThe ones that earn their place for most people:
\n| Plugin | \nWhat it solves | \n
|---|---|
| Dataview | \nTurns notes into a queryable database | \n
| Calendar | \nMonth view for daily notes | \n
| Templater | \nTemplates with logic \u2014 dates, prompts, scripting | \n
| Excalidraw | \nHand-drawn diagrams stored inside the vault | \n
| Style Settings | \nTweak theme colours and spacing without CSS | \n
Dataview is the one that changes how the vault feels. Instead of maintaining an index note by hand, you write a query and it stays current.
\n
That query sits in a normal note. Every time you open it, Obsidian scans the Reading/ folder and rebuilds the table, so a paper you add next month appears without you editing anything.
Here is the honest truth about the graph view: it is beautiful, it is motivating, and it is useless for the first month.
\n
A graph of twelve notes tells you nothing you did not already know. A graph of four hundred shows you clusters you never planned, orphan notes you should link or delete, and hub notes that turn out to be the real organising centres of your thinking.
\nBuilding structure before content. You cannot design the right hierarchy for notes you have not written. Start flat and let structure emerge.
Installing too many plugins. Add them to solve problems you have actually hit, not problems a video told you about.
Treating it as an archive. A vault full of clipped articles you never linked or reread is a graveyard, not a knowledge base. One note you wrote in your own words beats ten you pasted.
Splitting into many vaults. Links do not cross vault boundaries. One vault, folders inside it.
Chasing the perfect system. Every month someone publishes a new methodology with an acronym. The people getting real value from Obsidian are mostly running something boring and consistent. Boring and consistent wins.
Over-tagging. If every note carries eight tags, tags stop narrowing anything. A handful you actually filter on beats a taxonomy you admire.
If you want something concrete to follow:
\nDays 1\u20132. Install, create one vault, make the five folders. Write three notes about things you already know well and link them to each other.Days 3\u20137. Turn on daily notes. Capture into them every day, without organising. Do not touch settings.Day 7. First review. Promote two or three captures into real notes. Notice what you keep reaching for.Week 2. Add a literature template. Install Dataview only if you feel the need for an index. Write a note that links to five existing ones.End of week 2. Open the graph for the first time. It will be small, and that is fine.Once the daily loop is automatic, the next steps are richer Dataview queries, Templater for dynamic templates, and if you want to publish, either Obsidian Publish or a static-site generator like Quartz, which renders a vault into a website for free.
\nBut none of that matters until the habit exists. After installation, everything else is elaboration. I hope this helps!
\nI'm submitting this comment in response to NOT-OD-26-088: Request for Information (RFI) on Proposed Changes to Reporting Outcomes from NIH Peer Review. I thank the NIH for the opportunity to respond to the request for information.
\nThe National Institutes of Health must maximize transparency in its reporting of peer review outcomes rather than obscure them with this ill-advised policy proposal. The proposal to withhold numeric scores in favor of broad categories reduces the overall usefulness of the peer review process for both awarded and unawarded grant applicants. Here, not only do I argue that NIH should not move forward with this proposed change to obfuscate quantitative scores, it should instead do much more to improve public accessibility to this information for the purposes of evidence building.\nWithholding exact scores harms researchers and their institutions. A broad \"Competitive\" designation spanning the 26th through 50th percentile does not distinguish an application that narrowly missed funding from one requiring fundamental redesign. Early career researchers may rely on the scoring to determine whether to resubmit, restructure, or redirect their work. Institutions also rely on this information for internal decisionmaking regarding bridge funding, startup extensions, and protected time.\nFurthermore, removing numerical scores from program officers will increase their workload and reduce consistency in funding decisions. Program staff currently rely on calibrated rank ordering. Without it, they may be forced to construct undocumented, ad hoc shadow rankings derived from written critiques. Retaining the final overall impact score and percentile ensures program officers can maintain consistent and documented funding decisions.\nNot only should this current plan be rejected, NIH should actually go in the complete other direction and provide more transparency. As Stuart Buck and I argued in Issues in Science and Technology last year, NIH (and other federal funders) should disclose full scores to grant applicants and the public for all *awarded *and *unawarded *applications. Understanding federal research and development investments requires knowing about both the awarded applications and the unawarded applications. Disclosing data on unfunded applications empowers the research community to evaluate whether agencies are supporting a wide range of ideas or favoring narrow theories. Providing this complete picture helps researchers refine their approaches, avoid duplicating unpromising projects, and discover potential collaborations much earlier.
\nTo capitalize on this transparency, the NIH should work with OMB and GSA to implement a centralized marketplace for highly rated but unfunded grant applications, as recommended by Sandeep Patel, Stuart Buck, Ian Banks, and Amit Gupta here. This system would allow other federal agencies and philanthropic organizations to discover and fund thoroughly vetted research proposals. Transforming unfunded applications into an accessible market for scientific ideas will maximize the return on the existing peer review system and accelerate biomedical innovation.\nThis approach aligns precisely with the principles of Gold Standard Science and the most recent OMB/OSTP joint R&D priorities memo (M-26-16). The M-26-16 guidance calls for rigorously studying, evaluating, and improving how Federal science is funded. Releasing comprehensive data on peer review outcomes provides the exact metascience capabilities required to achieve this objective, allowing agencies to identify research trends and understand the derivative impacts of their funding.\nFinally, the HHS Scientific Integrity Policy mandates that scientific processes remain free from interference or inappropriate influence that undermines impartiality or professional judgment. Providing public accessibility to the scores and outcomes of NIH peer review provides a record that allows Congress, advisory councils, and the public to evaluate the stewardship of taxpayer resources. Fully disclosing peer review scores protects the grant process from undue political interference and ensures funding decisions are demonstrably driven by scientific merit.\nI urge the NIH to reject the proposed categorization scheme, retain the reporting of the final overall impact score and percentile to applicants and program staff, and adopt a framework of complete public disclosure for all peer review outcomes.
\nUnsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research.
\nAnmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf unseren Partnereinrichtungen und auf Veranstaltungen, die sich an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit richten bzw. die offen sind f\u00fcr Angeh\u00f6rige der Wissenschafts- und Kulturerbeeinrichtungen in Berlin. Wir erg\u00e4nzen diese Liste gerne (Info bitte via Mail ans OROB).\n\n
Der Verein \"museum-digital Deutschland\" veranstaltet am 30. Oktober 2026 zum vierten Mal eine bundesweite museum-digital Usertagung. Sie richtet sich an alle Nutzer:innen von museum-digital. Aber auch Interessierte, die bisher noch nicht mit museum-digital arbeiten sind herzlich eingeladen. Es wird Informationen zu den Neuerungen bei museum-digital geben sowie Projektberichte von aktiven Usern. Die Veranstaltung ist kostenfrei und findet online statt. Im Anschluss findet die Mitgliederversammlung f\u00fcr die Mitglieder des Vereins statt. Die Usertagung bietet eine Plattform, bei der Museen ihre Arbeit mit museum-digital vorstellen und sich austauschen k\u00f6nnen.
\nIm Netzwerk Recht und Open Research m\u00f6chten wir Austausch und Vernetzung zu konkreten rechtlichen Fragen bef\u00f6rdern und gemeinsam eine rechtspolitische Interessenvertretung f\u00fcr die offene Forschung initiieren. […]\u00a0Beim ersten Treffen des Netzwerks m\u00f6chten wir einen Raum \u00f6ffnen, um allgemein \u00fcber praktische und strategische Rechtsfragen rund um offene Forschung, Open Access und wissenschaftliches Publizieren zu sprechen und in den Austausch zu kommen.
\nIn dieser Fortbildung lernen Sie die Grundlagen von Open Access und offenen Lizenzen. Das Projekt open-access.network stellt neues Selbstlernmaterial zur Verf\u00fcgung. Es gibt Gelegenheit f\u00fcr \u00dcbungen und Diskussion.
\nForschungsdaten sind ein wesentlicher Bestandteil geowissenschaftlicher Forschung und sollten nach M\u00f6glichkeit offen und nachnutzbar ver\u00f6ffentlicht werden, wobei die beteiligten Forschenden und Institutionen angemessen anerkannt werden sollten. Forschungsdatenrepositorien gew\u00e4hrleisten die langfristige Verf\u00fcgbarkeit von Daten und erm\u00f6glichen deren Identifikation und Zitierbarkeit, beispielsweise durch die Vergabe von DOIs.
\nThis workshop brings together scholars committed to strengthening the reliability, transparency, and cumulative nature of research in the social sciences.
\nDie rasante Verbreitung und die niedrigschwellige Nutzung k\u00fcnstlicher Intelligenz (KI) ver\u00e4ndern nachhaltig die Forschungspraxis an Hochschulen und Wissenschaftseinrichtungen. Die automatisierte Verarbeitung gro\u00dfer Datenmengen sowie ihre Verkn\u00fcpfung und Analyse in k\u00fcrzester Zeit stellen in vielen Disziplinen etablierte Forschungsmethoden in Frage. W\u00e4hrend diese Entwicklungen in datenintensiven F\u00e4chern bereits intensiv diskutiert werden, bleibt bislang offen, welche Konsequenzen sich daraus f\u00fcr kleine F\u00e4cher ergeben.
\nOpen Access ist Gegenstand bibliotheks- und informationswissenschaftlicher Forschung. Auf Grundlage offener Metadaten l\u00e4sst sich empirisch untersuchen, wie sich Publikationsmodelle entwickeln. Die Session beleuchtet zwei sich gegenseitig bedingende Dynamiken: die kommerziell getriebene, jedoch unvollst\u00e4ndige Transformation hybrider Subskriptionszeitschriften sowie die R\u00fcckkehr von community-getragener Diamond-Open-Access-Zeitschriften zu Subskriptions- oder geb\u00fchrenbasierten Modellen.
\nThe 2026 Conference of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information will bring together the international community of signatories, supporters, and other stakeholders, creating a space to advance open research information across institutional contexts and explore how to align policy and practical implementation.
\nDie Veranstaltung bietet einen Raum f\u00fcr Austausch und Diskussion zu offenen Forschungsinformationen in Deutschland. Eingeladen sind Akteure, Einrichtungen, Initiativen und Projekte, die mit Forschungsinformationssystemen, (offenen) Forschungsinformationen und Metadaten arbeiten \u2013 sowohl in der Praxis als auch auf der Ebene von Leitung, Administration, Policy und F\u00f6rderung. Ziel ist es, die teilweise fragmentierten Aktivit\u00e4ten und Communities besser zu vernetzen und offene Forschungsinformationen in der deutschen Wissenschaft \u00fcber institutionelle Grenzen hinweg voranzubringen.
\nDer Workshop \"Beyond Books\" […] beleuchtet die Bedeutung wissenschaftlicher Veranstaltungen f\u00fcr die interne Wissenschaftskommunikation. Neben Einblicken in die von Communities getragenen Plattformen f\u00fcr die Verbreitung von wissenschaftlichen Veranstaltungen wird diskutiert, welche Rolle sie in der Forschungsbewertung spielen und wie sich Metadatenstandards weiterentwickeln lassen. Der Workshop richtet sich an bibliothekarische Fachreferent:innen und hat einen interdisziplin\u00e4ren Zuschnitt. Neben Impulsen zu aktuellen Entwicklungen bietet er Raum f\u00fcr Erfahrungsaustausch und gemeinsame Diskussion dar\u00fcber, wie Bibliotheken in ihrer Rolle als Infrastrukturpartner die Forschung unterst\u00fctzen k\u00f6nnen.
\nUnter dem Leitmotiv der diesj\u00e4hrigen digiS-Konferenz \"Die Zukunft erinnert sich \u2013 Kulturerbe digital weiterdenken. Nachhaltig bewahren, offen teilen\" wollen wir aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven mit unseren G\u00e4sten diskutieren, welche digitalen Infrastrukturen es braucht, um Kulturdaten krisenfest zu machen und handlungsf\u00e4hig zu bleiben. Wie l\u00e4sst sich Digitalisierung in Institutionen nachhaltig umsetzen? Was bedeutet eine FAIRe und offene Bereitstellung von Daten? Welche Rolle k\u00f6nnen KI-Anwendungen f\u00fcr digitale Nachhaltigkeit und Resilienz spielen? Und welche Werkzeuge, Erfahrungen und Kooperationen stehen uns bereits heute zur Verf\u00fcgung, um uns verl\u00e4sslich und l\u00f6sungsorientiert durch die vielf\u00e4ltigen Herausforderungen des digitalen (Kulturdaten-)Lebens zu bringen?
\nweiter zu Dezember 2026 [in K\u00fcrze]
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/pk0be-geb91","guid":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/?p=4365","language":"de","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791763200,"rid":"zpkjd-9ap55","summary":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research. Anmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen.","tags":["Allgemein","Veranstaltungshinweise"],"title":"Veranstaltungshinweise November 2026","updated_at":1791897308,"url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/2026/10/12/veranstaltungshinweise-november-2026/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/007tfm130","name":"Research Software Alliance"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Barker","given":"Michelle","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3623-172X"},{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Hartley","given":"Kim","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4345-9044"}],"blog":{"authors":[{"name":"Research Software Alliance"}],"community_id":"79c5ab82-d540-413c-a8cf-3e55d0135a40","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Recent content on Research Software Alliance","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/researchsoft","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/79c5ab82-d540-413c-a8cf-3e55d0135a40/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://www.researchsoft.org/feed.xml","filter":null,"generator":"Hugo","home_page_url":"https://www.researchsoft.org/","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":null,"slug":"researchsoft","status":"active","subfield":"1802","title":"Research Software Alliance","updated":1791849600,"use_api":null},"blog_name":"Research Software Alliance","blog_slug":"researchsoft","content_html":"By Michelle Barker, Kim Hartley
\nThis post is being cross-posted by Better Scientific Software (BSSw), the Institute for Research Software, and the Netherlands eScience Center.
\nResearch software sits behind an increasing share of modern research, but the systems needed to fund, maintain, recognise, govern, and develop it have not kept pace with its importance. Generative AI is adding new urgency: as producing code and other research outputs becomes easier, questions of trust, verification, provenance, maintenance, and long-term stewardship become even more important. Addressing these challenges requires coordination not only among research software engineers, but across the funders, publishers, policymakers, infrastructure providers, trainers, and research organisations that shape the wider research ecosystem.
\nThese interconnected challenges provided the backdrop to the inaugural International Research Software Conference (IRSC). Across two days, discussions ranged from AI challenges, sustainable funding, and software policy to publishing, metascience, skills and training, and international community building. By creating a dedicated space for these communities to connect, exchange practices, and address shared challenges, IRSC advanced dialogue on research software and its intersections with funding, publishing, policy, metascience, skills and training, and generative AI, while building on work underway through ReSA's forums, task forces, and other international collaborations. A recurring message was that many of the challenges facing research software cannot be solved by individual projects or organisations: they require stronger coordination across the international research software community.
\nCo-located with RSECon26 in September 2026 in the UK, IRSC brought together more than 110 in-person and remote participants from across the international research software ecosystem. The program featured 20 talks, 10 lightning talks, 10 Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions, and two plenary discussions, along with keynotes from Riva Quiroga (RSE Chile), What We Talk About When We Talk About RSE, and Stefano Zacchiroli (Software Heritage), What Public Code Can Teach Us: Research Software meets Software Research.
\n\n\n\n
A BoF on Evaluating research software funding, led by Neil Chue Hong (Institute for Research Software and University of Edinburgh) and Dario Taraborelli (Renaissance Philanthropy), provided an opportunity to explore approaches to understanding the effectiveness and impact of research software funding.
\nThe conversation continued on the second day, with talks exploring lessons from a new multi-donor fund, Open Source for Science Fund (OS4Science), and approaches to improving how research software funding is allocated.
\nThese discussions connect closely with the Research Software Funders Forum, which brings together funding organisations to share practices, identify common challenges, and explore opportunities for greater coordination around research software funding.
\n\n\n\n
Lauren Cadwallader (PLOS) presented Beyond Computational Biology: Making Code Sharing Policies Work Across Research Fields, exploring how approaches to code-sharing policies can be applied across research disciplines.
\nThis was followed by a BoF on Separating out data and code in open science policies, which introduced a new Working Group (WG) within the Publishing Research Software (PubSoft) Forum focused on improving publisher policies for sharing research software and code. The discussion also connected this work with related initiatives across the research software ecosystem. Jeremy Cohen (Imperial College London) shared insights from the joint ReSA and Research Data Alliance (RDA) WG on Policies in Research Organisations for Research Software (PRO4RS), while Neil Chue Hong brought perspectives from discussions with research funders on code policy.
\nThe new PubSoft WG complements other work underway through the forum, including a WG focused on peer review of code.
\nThe BoF Committing to Sustainable Research Software with ADORE, led by Lieke de Boer (Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development - ZonMw), Marta Teperek (Dutch Research Council - NWO), and Carlos Martinez-Ortiz (Netherlands eScience Center), explored how organisations are putting the recommendations of the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE) into practice, the practical and strategic benefits of signing the declaration, and opportunities to support wider adoption.
\nExamples from signatories, including the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, ELIXIR, and the German Research Foundation (DFG), demonstrated the different ways ADORE can support institutional change.
\nOther sessions highlighted complementary approaches to supporting sustainable research software. In a lightning talk, Ishwar Chandramouliswaran (U.S. National Institutes of Health - NIH) highlighted how the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy is supporting sustainable, open, and interoperable research software ecosystems through investments in best practices, workforce development, infrastructure, standards, and partnerships. While NIH does not currently have a single standalone research software policy, its programs and initiatives collectively promote FAIR software practices, open-source dissemination, sustainable maintenance, and collaborative development.
\nIRSC also highlighted efforts to translate shared principles into practical action across the research ecosystem. The BoF From Principles to Practice: Driving Adoption of FAIR Research Software Across the Ecosystem introduced practical, step-by-step guidelines developed by ReSA's Actionable FAIR4RS task force to help translate the FAIR Principles for Research Software into practice.
\nThese discussions reflect ReSA's broader work to strengthen research software policy internationally. The Research Software Policy (RSP) Forum provides an ongoing space for this work, bringing together policymakers to share practices, address common challenges, and support greater coordination in policy development, implementation, and alignment.
\n\n\n\n
The Research Software Metascience BoF, led by Wilhelm Hasselbring (Kiel University), Daniel S. Katz (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Rena Bakhshi (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research - TNO), and Simon Hettrick (University of Southampton), brought participants together to consider research software through a metascience lens.
\nThe session built on conversations taking place through the Metascience and Research Software (MaRS) Forum, which have resulted in a paper on Metascience, Research Software, and the Case for Research Software Metascience. The forum is a collaboration of metascience groups, communities, and organisations working to better understand the implications of research software for the research ecosystem and research process. The MaRS Forum provides a space to identify gaps and opportunities in research software metascience, strengthen research software as an area of research, and increase awareness of research examining the role and impact of software across the research ecosystem.
\nInternational perspectives on sustainability challenges and opportunities in research software training networks, a BoF led by Eva Lekkerkerker and Fenne Riemslagh (Netherlands eScience Center), Jeremy Cohen (Imperial College London), and Danny Garside (Digital Research Academy) explored how research software training networks can become more sustainable and scalable, particularly as they remain heavily dependent on individual trainers whose contributions are often under-recognised and difficult to sustain.
\nSamantha Wittke (CSC - IT Center for Science) shared a practical example through CodeRefinery's \"bring your own classroom\" model, which combines shared online teaching with local, community-led support. Extending the discussion to wider support for RSEs, Mike Simpson (Society of Research Software Engineering) highlighted the Society's work to build community, strengthen recognition and career development for RSEs, and create opportunities for greater involvement in the RSE movement.
\nThese themes are central to the Skills and Training for Research Software (STaRS) Forum, which connects organisations and initiatives working to strengthen research software skills and training globally through mapping of current offerings, sharing of best practices in curriculum design, approaches to demonstrating need and impact, and integration into broader research/open science/open source software training initiatives.
\n\n\n\n
Generative AI (GenAI) was a prominent theme throughout IRSC, with sessions exploring its implications for how research software is developed, maintained, evaluated, and sustained. In her welcome remarks, ReSA Director Michelle Barker highlighted how GenAI is amplifying existing challenges for the research software community, particularly around trust, verification, maintenance, and stewardship. As creating research outputs becomes easier and cheaper, greater investment is needed in the infrastructure and expertise required to verify and sustain them, as well as the shared knowledge, software, and communities on which AI depends. Rather than simply consuming this shared commons, the research community must also sustain and reproduce it, making the impact of GenAI not only a technological challenge, but a collective-action problem.
\nSeveral talks and sessions built on discussions from ReSA and Schmidt Sciences' March 2026 Edinburgh workshop on Research Software Engineering in the Age of Generative AI: Building a Community Vision. The BoF Research Software Engineering: Evolving Competencies, Practices and Interfaces in the Age of Generative AI, led by Stephan Druskat et al., explored evolving RSE competencies, practices, training, and roles in the age of GenAI.
\nOther talks explored the practical implications of this shift. Joseph Shingleton (University of Glasgow) presented the Responsible AI Risk Register for RSE (RAIRR), a community resource for documenting AI risk. Arfon Smith (Schmidt Sciences) explored the evolving RSE role, including opportunities from AI-enabled workflows and interfaces, gaps in evaluation, provenance, and reproducibility, and new demands on software maintainers. This theme was continued in Arfon Smith's keynote at RSECon, Where does the rigor go? Research software and the future of trustworthy science.
\nCarina Kemp (Amazon Web Services - AWS) also contributed to the discussion through AWS Software Development in the Age of AI, sharing practical lessons from AWS's own AI-assisted development journey and exploring how the research software community can collectively establish shared standards, validation practices, and open tooling to ensure AI augments \u2014 rather than undermines \u2014 research integrity.
\nThe talk Next Generation Software Ecosystems for Scientific Computing: Concerns and Calls for Action by Lois Curfmann McInnes (Argonne National Laboratory) and Anshu Dubey (RIKEN Center for Computational Science) explored what is needed to build AI-ready scientific software ecosystems, emphasising three priorities: making trust explicit, designing socio-technically, and investing in judgement. They posed a broader question to the community: What should our communities build together that no single project or institution can accomplish alone?
\nA plenary discussion on Sustaining research software under AI assisted development, led by Colette Bos and Faruk Diblen (Netherlands eScience Center), considered how GenAI is changing code generation and the roles and expectations of different stakeholders in research software engineering, highlighting the importance of machine-readable provenance and careful human verification.
\n\n\n\n
The inaugural IRSC would not have been possible without the speakers, session chairs, remote facilitators, volunteers, Program Committee, RSECon26 organisers, and the ReSA and Institute for Research Software teams who contributed their time and expertise. We also gratefully acknowledge the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for supporting the scoping report that helped shape IRSC, as well as the initial committee members and stakeholders who helped inform and guide this process.
\nIRSC26 was also made possible through the generous support of our sponsors and partners:
\n\n\n\n
IRSC highlighted the wide range of work taking place across the international research software community and the importance of greater coordination across these efforts.
\nBy bringing these communities together, the conference created opportunities to strengthen connections, exchange approaches and experiences, and identify areas for future collaboration. We invite you to:
\nWe look forward to building on the momentum of IRSC and continuing to strengthen collaboration across the global research software community.
\nImages: Dan Mogan Photography
\n\n\nThe thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important question - what if every pair of star-cross'd lovers were reincarnations of the original Verona duo?
\n\nThe essence of tragedy is that the end is unavoidable. You've probably watched Romeo sup poison a hundred times. It is inevitable that Juliet will take her own life in response. Horrific! Yet, not only do you refuse to look away, you gleefully seek it out for another viewing. There's a reason why Tony and Maria cannot escape their destinies in West Side Story - something more than fate is pushing them onto a path that will accept no deviation. The only way through is, of course, death.
\n\nThe Thousand Deaths starts slowly - the first \"act\" felt like an excuse to retell the classic tale in a new setting. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and it is suffused with lovely writing - but it felt a bit \"so what?\"
\n\nAnd then they die.
\n\nAs the acts progress and they get closer to the their thousandth death the pace picks up. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, packed with allusions and references for the careful reader (more on that later). The story is heartbreaking - as well you know - and the author has the perfect knack of keeping her characters on just the right side of histrionics.
\n\nI'd sort of classify this as almost romantasy. There's an undercurrent of sci-fi and fantasy which can't be ignored - but you can also hear the stirring of the violins in the background. Our hero and heroine come together and are violently broken apart for our insatiable entertainment. Do we care about whether that's good for them? What does it feel like to be a Mercutio forever used as a pawn-sacrifice? Does Tybalt resent his forcible reincarnation into a perpetual baddie? Are we culpable for insisting that they strut upon an endless stage just so we can wipe tears from our eyes?
\n\nThe book builds to a fine crescendo. It is heartfelt and utterly tragic. The ending will, I suspect, divide people. I found it mostly satisfactory and completely in keeping with the rest of the story.
\n\nOne final thing - the end notes are superb. They go through all the references you might have missed, explain where certain phrases came from, and point the curious reader to the books which were an inspiration. Too many authors treat their literary allusions as a precious puzzle and jealously guard them. I'm delighted that Caroline Finch is generous enough to share her secrets with us.
\n\nMany thanks to NetGalley for the review copy. The book will be released in 2027 - I strongly recommend putting it on your pre-order list.
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/wkhx2-yfh44","guid":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/?p=76683","image":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/randj.webp","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791849600,"rid":"tsnbv-x9v44","summary":"The thing about Romeo and Juliet is that it is a true story. It isn't literally true, but it is literary true. We see the same motif repeated throughout all cultures and all times. Caroline Lea (writing as Caroline Finch) asks an important question - what if every pair of star-cross'd lovers were reincarnations of the original Verona duo?","tags":["/etc/","Book Review","NetGalley","Shakespeare"],"title":"Book Review: The Thousand Deaths of Romeo and Juliet - Caroline Finch","updated_at":1791891311,"url":"https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/10/book-review-the-thousand-deaths-of-romeo-and-juliet-caroline-finch/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Dingemanse","given":"Mark"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"ac7a6214-f166-416e-9500-caa8343d6285","created":1780876800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":"Sounding out ideas on language, interaction, and iconicity","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/ideophone","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/ac7a6214-f166-416e-9500-caa8343d6285/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://ideophone.org/feed/atom/","filter":"category:98","generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://ideophone.org","issn":null,"language":"eng","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"ideophone","status":"active","subfield":"1203","title":"The Ideophone","updated":1791890809,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"The Ideophone","blog_slug":"ideophone","content_html":"We don’t generally see PhD dissertations as an exciting genre to read, and that is wholly our loss. As the publishing landscape of academia is fast being homogenised, the thesis is one of the last places where we have a chance to see the unalloyed brilliance of up and coming researchers. Let me show you using three examples of remarkable theses I have come across in the past years.
\n\n\n\nI didn’t know it was even possible to do a PhD dissertation in graphic novel style. And yet here we are. This is a mindblowing work that (my colleagues can attest) I keep raving about. From the back blurb:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNick Sousanis defies conventional forms of scholarly discourse to offer readers both a stunning work of graphic art and a serious inquiry into the ways humans construct knowledge. Unflattening is an insurrection against the fixed viewpoint. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, it uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that perception is always an active process of incorporating and reevaluating different vantage points.
\n
The title, “Unflattening” reads as a reference to the famous mathematical allegory by Abbott, Flatland: the two-dimensional world where one day A. Square is visited by a being from another dimension. Just as A. Square learns to “unflatten” his world as he gets to know the three-dimensional Sphere visiting him, so the readers of Sousanis’ work are invited to venture out of their conceptual comfort zones and explore a multiplicity of perspectives.
\n\n\n\n(Update: Sousanis notes: “I came up with the word Unflattening early on, and in my planning, figured I should use Flatland – originally at the end, but moved up to front\u2026”)
\n\n\n\nThe published version of this work is a book to have lying around on your desk. It’s always a pleasure to leaf through and there’s always something new to discover.
\n\n\n\nThe full title of this work is “The Equidistribution of Lattice Shapes of Rings of Integers of Cubic, Quartic, and Quintic Number Fields: an Artist’s Rendering”, and if this makes you glaze over, you should skip right to the prologue where it says:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRespected research math is dominated by men of a certain attitude. Even allowing for individual variation, there is still a tendency towards an oppressive atmosphere, which is carefully maintained and even championed by those who find it conducive to success. As any good grad student would do, I tried to fit in, mathematically. I absorbed the atmosphere and took attitudes to heart. I was miserable, and on the verge of failure. The problem was not individuals, but a system of self-preservation that, from the outside, feels like a long string of betrayals, some big, some small, perpetrated by your only support system. When I physically removed myself from the situation, I did not know where I was or what to do. First thought: FREEDOM!!!! Second thought: but what about the others like me, who don't do math the \"right way\" but could still greatly contribute to the community? I combined those two thoughts and started from zero on my thesis. What resulted was a thesis written for those who do not feel that they are encouraged to be themselves
\nHarron 2016:1
The whole thing is written in an irreverent, cool and clear writing style, smoothly segueing from “laysplaining” sections aimed at a general audience to more technical parts aimed at mathematicians. No wonder that Harron’s thesis went viral, winning coverage on Mathbabe, Scientific American and even getting its own Wikipedia article. Even for readers without the requisite background in mathematics, this thesis is a wonder to behold and a joy to read.
\n\n\n\nSwarmpunk! The name alone is a reason to check it out \u2014 and be sure to have a look at the corresponding website. There are many things to admire about this thesis. Content-wise, it is hard to summarise (the mark of a good thesis to my mind). Here’s the author’s own attempt:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDrawing from decades of digital infrastructural history within and beyond science, I will sketch a path by which we might build systems that empower, rather than control us. I will argue a better future for science is not utopian, nor solely dependent on funding and administrative agencies, but something we can organize ourselves. Woven together with my work in ill-defined phonetic categories and distributed experimental systems, I have written a love letter to the power of swarms: how by embracing heterogeneity and rough consensus we might make science more boisterous, creative, and human.
\n
I love the wide-ranging nature of this work all the more because the swarm metaphor does pull things together in a compelling way. Who would have thought that the neuroscience of phonetic categorization in mice could come together with a technical description of peer to peer protocols and trenchant critiques of academia’s infrastructural woes. And yet it all makes sense.
\n\n\n\nThe sheer breadth of topics covered evokes Bruno Latour’s sprawling Actor Network Theory framework and also shares a lot of insights with current approaches to collective intelligence (e.g., all intelligence is collective intelligence). What’s also impressive about this thesis is the way it combines a hard-hitting critique of the current state of academic workflows with concrete tools and constructive proposals to make things better. This makes it a truly excellent example of what Ivan Illich calls counterfoil research.
\n\n\n\nAnd then I haven’t even discussed the type-setting (in lovely Tufte-style), the anarchist easter eggs (like figure captions that say “taken without permission”) and the sharp-witted writing throughout. Read this work and let it broaden your conceptions of how to build a better academia.
\n\n\n\nHere’s another thing I love about these three theses: they all show something of the making process. They don’t present a fully polished surface; they have rough edges and that is entirely okay (especially for a thesis \u2014 but I think this holds in general for the scientific process).
\n\n\n\nSousanis’ Unflattening was revised for publication with Harvard University Press, so I imagine some of the loose ends have been tied up; but it includes, at the end, a set of sketches that document the very beginning of the work, dated to April 14, 2011. Why don’t more theses have this?
\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, for Harron, working on the thesis had to find a place next to other momentous life events. In the Acknowledgements, there is a parenthetical aside “I would thank the children, but frankly, they’ve been no help.”. One reason for this is found on the opening page of Chapter 5: a cartoon of the author working on “THESIS (draft)” followed by a panel with an inset where the author says “OW”, and contractions start…
\n\n\n\nSaunders’ Swarmpunk moves from work on phonetic categorization in mice to an unfinished chapter of musings on the topic of language games, and from there even more abruptly to work on a software infrastructure for scientific experimentation and collaboration (check out Autopilot). As they explain:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI had intended to finish my dissertation with an experiment that was the next logical conclusion of the mouse model of phonetics, doing longitudinal mesoscopic calcium imaging of auditory cortex as the phonemes were being learned in order to model the changes in network activity. (…) It comes out of chronological order in the spring of 2021, after my work with Autopilot and a covid-induced awakening of the possibility of public engineering with the People's Ventilator Project[72]. I was restless and not ready to return to basic research while the world was still so broken, and so it was abandoned in favor of the last piece on digital infrastructure. Accordingly, it ends relatively abruptly, without satisfying conclusion. I include it here in its unfinished form, roughly edited, warts and all, as something I intend to pick up perhaps one day when basic science is more possible.
\n
And yet the end product is amazing. Perhaps precisely because of the abrupt transitions, it invites the reader to fill in the gaps, to create those conceptual linkages, to contribute the cognitive work that makes all of science a collective enterprise.
\n\n\n\nMore importantly, it reminds us that we are humans first and foremost, and science is a human enterprise in which the neat plans we may make can be greatly affected by real life events \u2014 as they should.
\n\n\n\nDissertations like these may be rare. But they exist. And by existing, they show that true creativity is still alive in academia. For me personally, this kind of work strengthens my convinction that as supervisors, we need to be serious about ideas and open-minded about form and content. (Perhaps this is why I have always liked my PhD student’s Gwilym Lockwood’s mad MS-Paint skills \u2014 and the Harron-like irreverent style of the opening pages of his 2017 PhD.)
\n\n\n\nToday’s PhD projects tend to be considerably less free-form than even 5 or 10 years ago. Today we ask graduate students to write full-blown project proposals, force them to specify their planning in gantt charts, and herd them through series of checkpoints. I understand why this is done, and that it is helpful to some. But I cannot ignore that it is also a machinery for control, arising from management processes built towards verification, certification, and standardization. It is, at base, a stark form of risk-aversion.
\n\n\n\nBut here is the thing about science: it thrives on serendipity. If all risks had been averted and all processes duly followed, it is unlikely that we would have seen these three mindblowing dissertations. Here’s to an academia with room for serendipity!
\n\n\n\nUpdate: turns out Sousanis has a wonderful overview page on alternative forms of scholarship.
\n\n\n\nI'm long overdue in giving you all an update on the BBN Fund. In short: progress is strong. For those who haven't been following along, BBNs are R&D organizations that pursue an ambitious, North Star technical vision, funded by a mix of contracts and grants. Think interactive computing in the late 1950s, autonomous vehicles in the 1980s, or driving the cost of proteins down to 1/1000th the cost of what it is today. If it sounds hard to (a) find researcher-founders talented enough to do such work, and (b) find customers or funders with the technical ambition to fund such big swings, it can be. But over the past 20 months, the young and growing BBN community has proven that they can make it happen on a pretty reliable basis.
A more robust update will follow in a future piece, but below are a few highlights:
The UK's Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) has doubled our cohort size for the BBN launchpad partnership this coming year, enabling our program to support eight ARIA-relevant BBNs and deploy \u00a3800k+ across the cohort. According to public data, BBNs in the ARIA ecosystem have already brought in ~$20\u2013$30 million in aligned, ambitious contracts. This is up from ~$10 million earlier this year, when Janelle Tam and I launched the BBN Fund.
Coefficient Giving has generously given us a $700k grant to continue to find ways to build more BBNs in the modern era.1 This grant marks the first time we can directly fund non-ARIA BBNs, while also covering general operating costs. As discussed in our piece announcing the BBN Fund, we intend to stretch this money exceptionally far through a combination of revenue-sharing agreements, low-interest loans, and grants. We expect that every dollar spent by the fund \u2014 whether on our salaries or deployed directly to BBNs \u2014 will help bring in ~10X the amount spent in contracts and grants. That's been true of our work so far.
We've been doing all of this with an obvious bottleneck: we lack a team of scientific scouts. I have a cadre of world-class, creative technical people I go to for advice (Niko McCarty, Adam Marblestone, ARIA program directors, Ales Flidr, etc.), and I'm helpful in my own way \u2014 I understand BBN founders' technical visions, have some useful contract ideas, and am serviceable at making connections in certain areas \u2014 but I'm an org structures guy, not a true scientist or engineer. I'm looking for technical scouts with the strange and wonderful spark that will take us to the next level.2
The task is, in a nutshell:
Find modern J.C.R. Lickliders who, under the right circumstances, could found BBNs as impactful as the one that built the ARPAnet
Find ambitious, aligned funders and customers who can enable the work
In any area where you have both, if you connect those two dots, we have a BBN. Connect five pairs of dots a year, and that's a pretty fantastic year. Connect ten, and you might be on the way to becoming one of the most important people in the R&D community. I will continue to do everything I can to connect dots myself, but I'd like to become Plan B.
To do this job, I'm looking for technical obsessives. Specifically, people who:
Fiendishly keep up with relatively broad chunks of the academic literature
Find it fun to befriend as many up-and-coming, applied, ambitious scientists as they can
Know who is up to what, from R&D funders to academic labs
Have a crystal-clear sense of what types of work academic labs and VC-funded startups do and don't do, and have a clear sense of where their work is insufficient
Have brains for practical organizational details \u2014 philanthropic funding processes, how biotech contract staging works, the rudiments of equipment procurement, etc.
Essentially, I'm looking for somebody who already does most of what this job entails for the love of the game.
We just raised money from Fulcrum Science to seed our technical scouting capacity. We are open to solving the scouting problem with one full-timer or several part-timers. I'm flexible on the type of person and how we structure the arrangement. Proposed time commitments could range from two hours a month to full-time. A conviction I've developed while obsessing over the history and modern practicalities of building great things in the cracks of the R&D ecosystem is that many great technical minds are underemployed. Some people have exceptional technical knowledge, but don't care to make individual projects their monomaniacal obsession, as academics often must. They might not want to manage people, as deep tech CEOs must. They might find the shape of projects that come through the doors of VC firms a bit technically dull. What I need is for you to be obsessed with finding modern-day Lickliders and the people who might fund them.
If our interests are aligned, I'd like to unleash you. The work arrangement can be shaped to fit the person applying. Excellence at the job at hand is the only thing I will be uncompromising on.
If this sounds like you, email me (gilliam@renphil.org) with your takes on:
Technical areas which could house phenomenal BBNs
Potential customers or funders that might be ideal funding sources for those BBNs
Specific individuals well-suited to founding these orgs3
And feel free to ask me any questions, too.
The original BBN's founders \u2014 Bolt & Beranek, MIT professors \u2014 took pride in \"only making hires that raised the average competence level of the firm.\" This approach brought them great minds like John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and a young Fisher Black (of Black-Scholes fame) as part-time firm collaborators. And it brought them J.C.R. Licklider as a full-timer, who built out the firm's computing efforts from scratch. They understood that to build something like a technology-maximizing firm, nothing was more valuable than practical individuals with the \"strange and wonderful creative spark that makes a good researcher.\" When the firm found that in a person, they went out of their way to build something together.
I look forward to hearing from some of you.
All the best,
Eric
I look forward to hearing from those of you who reach out. And if this is your first exposure to this work, which I'm so romantic about, the grand project of enabling modern-day J.C.R. Lickliders to build their life's work within BBN-like orgs, rather than shoehorning their best ideas into VC-shaped boxes, welcome:) I encourage you to check out any of the pieces below, and send me the best ideas and people that come to mind as you read.
Ideas for Biotechnology BBNs \u2014 Niko McCarty
BBNs Toward Universal Fabricators \u2014 Ivan Jayapurna
An Applied Crop Genetics BBN \u2014 Karen Sarkisyan
\"The Third University of Cambridge\": BBN and the Development of the ARPAnet
An Interview with Chuck Thorpe on CMU: Operating an autonomous vehicle research powerhouse
Edwin Cohn and the Harvard Blood Factory \u2014 Inspiration for a pilot plant BBN
Reach out to me if you'd like more context.
This is a reference to Warren Weaver's modest quote noting that he \"lacked that strange and wonderful creative spark that makes a good researcher.\" That spark is what we hope for in some of our technical scouts. This is, first and foremost, an ideas job.
As a reminder, a complete BBN idea consists of a North Star technical vision, some base of revenue that will fund the work, a founder, and a reasonable story on why that individual can recruit the great minds needed to move the field forward with the resources available to them.
Seit etwa anderthalb Jahren arbeite ich jetzt mit Obsidian, und ganz ehrlich? ich habe die Umstellung nie bereut. (Zu meiner gro\u00dfen \u00dcberraschung ist mein Blogpost dazu einer der meist gelesenen, wenn nicht sogar insgesamt der erfolgreichste Post in diesem Blog. Wow.) Es hat etwa ein halbes Jahr gedauert, bis ich alles zu meiner Zufriedenheit und f\u00fcr meine Zwecke eingerichtet hatte, aber ich habe schon lange nichts mehr an meinem Setup ge\u00e4ndert. Wahrscheinlich sollte ich mal etwas aufr\u00e4umen, aber dazu ist gerade keine Zeit\u2026
Im folgenden stelle ich Euch kurz vor, welche Erweiterungen (Plugins) f\u00fcr mich wirklich unverzichtbar geworden sind.
Eines der wichtigsten Plugins \u00fcberhaupt: \"Git\" von Vinzent: https://github.com/vinzent03/obsidian-git integriert einen vollautomatisierten Git-Workflow in den Obsidian vault.
Vorteil: regelm\u00e4\u00dfiges Backup aller \u00c4nderungen. Mir sind schon zu oft Dateien verloren gegangen, oder Computer kaputt, oder kein Zugang mehr zum Arbeitsrechner\u2026.
Nat\u00fcrlich braucht man irgendwo einen Git-Account, aber die sind (noch) kostenlos und einfach zu bekommen (z. B. bei GitHub, GitLab, oder bei der europ\u00e4ischen Alternative Codeberg). Das Setup war gut dokumentiert, und einmal aufgesetzt habe ich nie wieder einen Gedanken daran verschwendet.
Faktisch habe ich zwei Git-Projekte aufgesetzt, eins f\u00fcr meinen gesamten Vault als Backup, und eins f\u00fcr nur den Ordner mit den Skript-Dateien f\u00fcr meine Online-Kurse, die ich mit externen Peer-Reviewer:innen teilen wollte. Kommentare und Feedback konnten wir \u00fcber Git-Issues und ein-zwei Video-Calls abwickeln. Das lief gut, aber nat\u00fcrlich hilft es, ein grunds\u00e4tzliches Verst\u00e4ndnis von Versionskontrollsystemen zu haben.
Full disclosure: ich kann (und m\u00fcsste/sollte) zu Git und den entsprechenden Workflows selbst noch eine ganze Menge lernen, aber f\u00fcr die genannten Zwecke reicht mein Wissen vollst\u00e4ndig aus. (Eine alte Version aus dem Git-Verlauf wieder herzustellen k\u00f6nnte ich aus dem Stand nicht, aber es ist tr\u00f6stlich zu wissen, dass es ginge. Irgendwie. Das kann ich dann herausfinden, wenn es so weit ist.)
Ein absoluter Game-Changer ist f\u00fcr mich der relativ neue \"Project Manager for Obsidian\" von StepanKropachev: https://github.com/stepankropachev/obsidian-pm.
Endlich kann ich die \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber meine Aufgaben behalten, ohne andauernd das Tool wechseln zu m\u00fcssen!
(Disclaimer: bisher nutze ich ihn haupts\u00e4chlich in meinem privaten vault, um die anfallenden Aufgaben bei der Sanierung unseres Hauses nachzuverfolgen. F\u00fcr die aktuellen Aufgaben im Rahmen des WiNoDa-Projekts haben wir hier im Team andere L\u00f6sungen gefunden, und ich denke, das Plugin w\u00fcrde nicht ausreichen, um ein gro\u00dfes, verteiltes Team zu koordinieren. F\u00fcr meine eigenen Aufgaben wird dieses Plugin mir die Arbeit jedoch erheblich erleichtern und mir helfen, den \u00dcberblick dar\u00fcber zu behalten, wo ich gerade stehe.)
Project Manager erm\u00f6glicht es, Aufgaben, Unteraufgaben, Meilensteine, Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten, Zeiterfassung etc direkt im Vault zu pflegen. Die Ansicht kann tabellarisch, als Gantt-Chart oder \u00fcber Kanban Board erfolgen. Das Board ist individuell konfigurierbar, das Gantt-Chart intuitiv anpassbar, man kann Personen und tags vergeben und der Erledigungsstatus wird farbig angepasst. Alles was ich brauche, ohne Kontextwechsel, offline und lokal. Hier erz\u00e4hlt der Entwickler selbst, was er gemacht hat: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1sg3jcw/i_built_a_native_project_manager_for_obsidian/
Der \"Project Manager\" erg\u00e4nzt f\u00fcr mich das Plugin \"Task List Kanban\" von ErikaRS (https://github.com/erikars/task-list-kanban), welches in Dokumenten erstellte Aufgaben (formatiert als Checkliste und mit einem entsprechenden hashtag versehen) automatisch in ein Kanban-Board \u00fcberf\u00fchrt. Das ist \u00fcberaus praktisch, um bspw. aus verschiedenen Protokoll-Dokumenten, Gespr\u00e4chsnotizen oder konzeptionellem Geschreibsel alle ToDos an einer zentralen Stelle zusammenzuf\u00fchren. Da es ordnerbasiert funktioniert, wird es aber zuk\u00fcnftig einfach nur noch im Protokoll-Ordner leben.
\nEine Herausforderung (f\u00fcr mich) bleibt der Export in ein Format, mit dem \"andere\" Menschen arbeiten k\u00f6nnen. Auch wenn Markdown sich immer mehr verbreitet \u2013 Word bzw. docx bleibt das am weitesten verbreitete Textverarbeitungsprogramm/Textformat. Und das default-Exportformat von Obsidian ist PDF \u2013 das ist nicht immer ideal. Mit dem Plugin \"Enhancing Export\" von mokeyish (https://github.com/mokeyish/obsidian-enhancing-export) kann jedes Obsidian file in Word, verschiedene Markdown flavours, HTML, Latex etc exportiert werden.
Zuvor muss man allerdings auf dem lokalen Rechner Pandoc installieren. Ich fand das Aufsetzen ein bisschen komplizierter, aber eigentlich war alles gut erkl\u00e4rt.
Ich exportiere h\u00e4ufig Dokumente als .docx, um sie in Word zu layouten. Nicht immer werden alle Formate richtig erkannt, man sollte also schon sorgf\u00e4ltig pr\u00fcfen, ob \u00dcberschriften, Listen etc richtig \u00fcbernommen wurden. Aber dann ist es f\u00fcr mich einfacher, das Dokument zu formatieren, Farben, Logos, Seitenzahlen etc hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und vor allem mit anderen zur Weiterbearbeitung zu teilen.
Ich bin immer noch sicher, dass das mit Hilfe von css-basierten Formatvorlagen auch direkt in Obsidian geht , aber ich hatte bisher keine Zeit, mich damit zu besch\u00e4ftigen. Mache ich irgendwann.
Kleinere Plugins, die es mir etwas angenehmer machen:
\nPlugins, die ich bisher nicht viel genutzt habe, von denen ich mir aber \u2013 bei anderen Aufgabenstellungen \u2013 viel verspreche:
\nMathLive und BulkRename habe ich nur einmal benutzt \u2013 um eine Formel besser darstellen zu k\u00f6nnen bzw. um einen ganzen Ordner voll Dateinamen zu standardisieren. Das war hilfreich, aber ich brauche das nicht oft.
Nun denn. Nutzt Ihr auch Obsidian? Wie habt Ihr Euer Setup konfiguriert?
https://obsidian.md/\nhttps://community.obsidian.md/search?type=plugin\n\n- \"Git\" von Vinzent: https://github.com/vinzent03/obsidian-git\n- \"Project Manager for Obsidian\" von StepanKropachev: https://github.com/stepankropachev/obsidian-pm\n- \"Task List Kanban\" von ErikaRS: https://github.com/erikars/task-list-kanban\n- \"Enhancing Export\" von mokeyish: https://github.com/mokeyish/obsidian-enhancing-export\n- \"Better word count\" von lukeleppan: https://github.com/lukeleppan/better-word-count\n- \"Auto Note Mover\" von farux: https://github.com/farux/obsidian-auto-note-mover\n- \"Update modified date\" von alangrainger: https://github.com/alangrainger/obsidian-frontmatter-modified-date\n- \"Advanced slides\" von MSzturc: https://github.com/mszturc/obsidian-advanced-slides\n- \"Zotero Integration\": https://github.com/obsidian-community/obsidian-zotero-integration Guest Blog Post by Anne Betterman and Felix J. Augustin
\n\n\n\nSometimes, the smallest marks on a fossil bone can tell us some of the most interesting stories. In our recent study, published in Fossil Record, we investigated \"bioerosion\" \u00a0\u2013 traces left by organisms during feeding and other activities \u2013 on fossil bones from Upper Cretaceous deposits of Ha\u0163eg Basin in Romania. These traces gave us a new perspective on what happened to animal remains and on how the ancient ecosystem of Ha\u0163eg Island functioned.
\n\n\n\nAlthough bioerosion can provide important information about ancient ecosystems, it is still rarely studied in detail. Precious few previous studies had documented bioerosion from the Ha\u0163eg Basin, the principal area for fossils from Ha\u0163eg Island, but only from a limited number of bones and localities. We therefore wanted to figure out how common and widespread bioerosion was across the Ha\u0163eg Basin, and whether differences in taphonomy, local fauna, and depositional environments influenced its occurrence.
\n\n\n\nTo investigate this, the extensive Upper Cretaceous vertebrate fossil collection of the University of Bucharest was inspected. We discovered numerous new examples of bioerosion on dinosaur and turtle remains, coming from several different localities and geological formations. This allowed us to compare traces from different parts of the Ha\u0163eg Basin and from different depositional environments.
\n\n\n\nWhat stood out to us most was how widespread these traces turned out to be. We found evidence of bioerosion across a larger geographical and temporal range than previously recognized. Even more striking was the similarity between different environments, including braided and meandering river systems and floodplains, as well as generally well drained and more poorly drained environments.
\n\n\n\nIt appears that despite these environment-related differences, the overall patterns of carcass decomposition were remarkably consistent. This suggests that similar processes may have affected carcasses on Ha\u0163eg Island both across different environments and throughout millions of years.
\n\n\n\nThe traces also provide information about the organisms that interacted with the carcasses, and which most often fail to be preserved on their own. We documented several types of bioerosion, including grooves, pits and boreholes. Some of these traces were probably produced by multituberculate mammals, skin beetles or termites, revealing that a range of organisms fed on the carcasses of different dinosaurs and turtles after their death.
\n\n\n\nThese findings provide valuable insights into the functioning of the ecosystem of Ha\u0163eg Island, as death and decomposition are important ecological processes. Once an animal died, its carcass became a resource for other organisms. The traces preserved on fossil bones provide a rare record of these interactions, which usually remain cryptic.
\n\n\n\nWith this research, we hope to add another layer to our understanding of ancient Ha\u0163eg Island. By looking beyond the spectacular dinosaurs and paying attention to the marks left on their bones, we can develop a more complete picture of how this Late Cretaceous ecosystem functioned.
\n\n\n\nIn the end, our study shows that fossils can represent much more than just the remains of individual animals. A small groove, pit or borehole found on them may record an ecological interaction that took place millions of years ago. These seemingly \"boring\" traces are therefore anything but boring \u2013 they can help us understand not only how animals lived on Ha\u0163eg Island, but also what happened after they died.
\n\n\n\nOriginal source:
\n\n\n\nBettermann A, Csiki-Sava Z, Bocherens H, Augustin FJ (2026) Not only boring issues: bioerosion on bones from the Upper Cretaceous of the Ha\u0163eg Basin (Romania) and the implications for carcass decomposition on Ha\u0163eg Island. Fossil Record 29(2): 675-705. https://doi.org/10.3897/fr.29.189421
\n\n\n\nFor more articles on palaeontology, visit the\u00a0Fossil Record\u00a0website and follow the journal on\u00a0BlueSky\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook.
\n\n","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/dbp35-yrt13","guid":"https://blog.pensoft.net/?p=21218","image":"https://blog.pensoft.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/SciComm-PR-2026-Instagram-2026-10-12T173846.014.png","language":"en","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1791849600,"rid":"bj0jd-kpp09","summary":"Tweet Guest Blog Post by Anne Betterman and Felix J. Augustin Sometimes, the smallest marks on a fossil bone can tell us some of the most interesting stories. In our recent study, published in Fossil Record , we investigated \"bioerosion\" \u2013 traces left by organisms during feeding and other activities \u2013 on fossil bones from Upper Cretaceous deposits of Ha\u0163eg Basin in Romania.","tags":["Fossil Record","Bioerosion","Cretaceous","Dinosaur","Fossil"],"title":"Not Only Boring Issues: What Fossil Bones Reveal About cretaceous Ha\u0163eg Island","updated_at":1791878415,"url":"https://blog.pensoft.net/2026/10/13/not-only-boring-issues-what-fossil-bones-reveal-about-cretaceous-hateg-island/","version":"v1"},{"authors":[{"affiliation":[{"id":"https://ror.org/046ak2485","name":"Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin"}],"contributor_roles":[],"family":"Fischer","given":"Georg","url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5620-5759"}],"blog":{"authors":null,"community_id":"52aefd81-f405-4349-b080-754395a5d8b2","created":1694476800,"current_feed_url":null,"description":null,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/oaberlin","favicon":"https://rogue-scholar.org/api/communities/52aefd81-f405-4349-b080-754395a5d8b2/logo","feed_format":"application/atom+xml","feed_url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/feed/atom/","filter":null,"generator":"WordPress","home_page_url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin","issn":null,"language":"deu","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","prefix":"10.59350","relative_url":null,"secure":true,"slug":"oaberlin","status":"active","subfield":"1802","title":"Open Research Blog Berlin","updated":1791896983,"use_api":true},"blog_name":"Open Research Blog Berlin","blog_slug":"oaberlin","content_html":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research.
\nAnmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf unseren Partnereinrichtungen und auf Veranstaltungen, die sich an die \u00d6ffentlichkeit richten bzw. die offen sind f\u00fcr Angeh\u00f6rige der Wissenschafts- und Kulturerbeeinrichtungen in Berlin. Wir erg\u00e4nzen diese Liste gerne (Info bitte via Mail ans OROB).\n\n
Wie gehen Einrichtungen des Kulturerbes mit den Zeugnissen der Vergangenheit um? Nutzen sie diese, um bestimmte Sichtweisen historischer Entwicklungen zu st\u00fctzen, oder \u00fcberlassen sie die Bewertung den Nutzenden und erm\u00f6glichen vor allem den Zugang zu den Quellen? W\u00e4hrend Museen mit kuratierten Ausstellungen h\u00e4ufig st\u00e4rker interpretierend arbeiten, verstehen sich Archive und Bibliotheken traditionell eher als Einrichtungen, die sich auf den Zugang zu ihren Best\u00e4nden konzentrieren. Diese Rollenverteilung ger\u00e4t jedoch unter Druck, wenn es um ein schwieriges Erbe \u2013 etwa rassistische oder antisemitische Zeugnisse \u2013 geht: Archive werden kritisiert, wenn sie scheinbar ungefilterten Zugang gew\u00e4hren, w\u00e4hrend zugleich geschichtspolitische Eingriffe in Kulturerbeeinrichtungen kontrovers diskutiert werden.
\n2026 findet die dritte Ausgabe des gro\u00dfen OER-Fachtags von ORCA.nrw statt. Freuen Sie sich \u00fcber den Tag hinweg auf eine spannende Keynote, Projektvorstellungen, Workshops und viel Austausch & Vernetzung!
\nIm Vortrag wird, ankn\u00fcpfend an das Blockchain-Projekt f\u00fcr digitale Zeugnisse, die EUDI-Wallet thematisiert. Die Historie der Entwicklung dieser digitalen Brieftasche auf EU-Ebene wird vorgestellt und die Funktionen und M\u00f6glichkeiten sowie Detailinformationen zur Sicherheit werden erl\u00e4utert. Der aktuelle Stand der Entwicklung wird betrachtet und in Form einer Demo wird die Nutzung an einem konkreten Beispiel veranschaulicht. Nach einem Blick auf zuk\u00fcnftige Entwicklungen im Bereich \"Digitaler Identit\u00e4ten\", wie z. B. Post-Quanten-Verschl\u00fcsselung oder Alternative Biometrische Identifikationsverfahren (AuBi) schlie\u00dft der Abend mit Raum f\u00fcr Diskussionen \u00fcber die Technologie und deren Nutzung.
\nDer Einsatz von KI Technologien erstreckt sich zunehmend auf zentrale Bereiche politischer Steuerung, von der \u00f6ffentlichen Verwaltung und der Umweltpolitik bis hin zu Grenzregimen und wirtschaftlicher Regulierung. Dabei ver\u00e4ndern sie nicht nur Verfahren; es verschieben sich Machtkonstellationen, Verantwortung und politische Handlungsspielr\u00e4ume. Das Symposium mit \u00f6ffentlicher Paneldiskussion diskutiert KI als systemische Herausforderung f\u00fcr Demokratie und Rechtsstaat. Die Veranstaltung bietet kurze Einf\u00fchrungen in verschiedene Schwerpunkte unserer Forschung und erm\u00f6glicht eine kollaborative Plattform zur Diskussion der systemischen Kosten algorithmischer Governance f\u00fcr demokratische Strukturen. Dies schafft einen offenen Raum f\u00fcr Austausch mit politischen Entscheidungstr\u00e4ger*innen, Vertreter*innen von NGOs, Forschenden sowie allen, die an der Zukunft einer digitalen Gesellschaft interessiert sind.
\nDas Digitale ist ein gro\u00dfes Versprechen: Physische R\u00e4ume und pers\u00f6nliche Speichermedien scheinen ganz \u00fcberfl\u00fcssig zu werden, die Cloud soll ortsunabh\u00e4ngigen, schnellen Zugriff und unbegrenzten Speicherplatz erm\u00f6glichen. Aber was kostet das, welche L\u00f6sungen sind sicher und umweltvertr\u00e4glich?\u00a0Gemeinsam mit bestandserhaltenden Einrichtungen und Vertreter:innen aus Wissenschaft und Forschung wollen wir das Versprechen des Digitalen \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen und konstruktive Vorschl\u00e4ge zur longue dur\u00e9e des digitalen Erbes entwickeln. Es sprechen u.v. a.: Frank Scholze (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek), Richard Ovenden (Bodleian Library Oxford) und Petra Gehring (Rat f\u00fcr Informationsinfrastrukturen).
\nDas Open Science Forum Mitteldeutschland 2026 bringt am 5. Oktober Interessierte zu einem offenen Austausch \u00fcber Open Science als Gestaltungsaufgabe zusammen. Wir widmen uns der Frage, welche Rolle wissenschaftsunterst\u00fctzende Einrichtungen spielen, wenn es um neue Ans\u00e4tze in der Forschungsbewertung, nachhaltige Infrastrukturen und digitale Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t im Spannungsfeld geopolitischer Entwicklungen geht.
\nIn Archiven, Bibliotheken und anderen Ged\u00e4chtniseinrichtungen lagern bundesweit gef\u00e4hrdete Originale, die Meinungsvielfalt, Rechtsordnungen, historische Entwicklungen und politisches Handeln dokumentieren. Der Erhalt dieser \u00dcberlieferungen ist Grundvoraussetzung f\u00fcr eine quellen- und faktenbasierte Forschung, eine historische Aufarbeitung sowie die Sichtbarmachung gesellschaftlicher Mehrstimmigkeit und Diskurse. Originalerhalt ist grundlegender Bestandteil der Informationssicherung und ein wichtiger Beitrag zu einer lebendigen, urteilsf\u00e4higen und wehrhaften Demokratie \u2013 insbesondere angesichts der zunehmenden Bedrohung durch hybride Desinformation und andere demokratiegef\u00e4hrdende Entwicklungen.
\nDie FDM-Sprechstunde Humanities@NFDI ist eine Online-Beratung f\u00fcr Studierende, Forschende oder Mitarbeitende aus Forschungs- und Sammlungsinstitutionen zu allen Fragen rund um das Forschungsdatenmanagement. Expert:innen aus den geisteswissenschaftlichen NFDI-Konsortien NFDI4Memory, NFDI4Culture, NFDI4Objects und Text+ stehen f\u00fcr Ihre Fragen zu allen Themen rund ums Forschungsdatenmanagement bereit. Bei Bedarf k\u00f6nnen Einzelgespr\u00e4che in Breakoutr\u00e4umen vertieft werden.
\nIncreasing consolidation and commercial control over all aspects of knowledge comes at a cost. This year's theme challenges us to consider the financial, human, and environmental costs of creating, sharing, and sustaining knowledge\u2014particularly when these costs are driven by private rather than public interests. Last year's theme of \"Who owns our knowledge?\" reflected on the reality of commercial ownership of knowledge. This year's theme will reckon with the costs of that reality and avenues for reclaiming control of these systems meant to serve the public interest.
\nIn diesem Workshop lernen die Teilnehmenden datenschutzkonforme KI-Anwendungen und Einsatzm\u00f6glichkeiten kennen, die neue Wege f\u00fcr die Nachnutzung von Forschungsdaten erm\u00f6glichen und zur Verbesserung von Datenqualit\u00e4t, Metadatenverf\u00fcgbarkeit und Zug\u00e4nglichkeit beitragen. Mithilfe konkreter Anwendungsf\u00e4lle aus der Forschung werden die rechtssicheren Einsatzm\u00f6glichkeiten der KI im Datenlebenzyklus vorgestellt.
\nFaires, wissenschaftsgeleitetes Open-Access-Publizieren gewinnt zunehmend an Bedeutung, nicht zuletzt durch die Priorisierungsagenda der BUA-Einrichtungen zur Umsetzung des Open-Science-Leitbilds und das Positionspapier zu Open Research der Berliner Landesinitiative. Doch welche Alternativen zu etablierten, oft kommerziellen Publikationswegen gibt es eigentlich, und wie funktionieren sie? In diesem einst\u00fcndigen Lunch Meeting stellen wir Ihnen ausgew\u00e4hlte Orte und Tools f\u00fcr digitales Publizieren vor.
\nDer Workshop f\u00fchrt in die Grundfunktionen von OpenRefine ein und zeigt an konkreten Anwendungsf\u00e4llen, wie Forschende tabellarische Datens\u00e4tze bereinigen, strukturieren und anreichern k\u00f6nnen. Dabei werden auch geskriptete Bearbeitungsschritte sowie der Import und Export verschiedener Datenformate (CSV, XML, JSON) behandelt. OpenRefine erm\u00f6glicht nicht nur einen schnellen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber gro\u00dfe Datens\u00e4tze, sondern hilft vor allem bei heterogenen und historisch gewachsenen Datens\u00e4tze, die oft inkonsistente Metadaten aufweisen.
\nDer Workshop gibt einen \u00dcberblick \u00fcber ELN-Konzepte, zeigt relevante Forschungsdatenmanagement-Aspekte auf und bietet eine praktische Einf\u00fchrung.
\nDer Aktionstag \"Forschungsdaten@BUA\" l\u00e4dt erstmals Forschende der Berlin University Alliance herzlich ein, \u00fcber den Umgang mit Forschungsdaten ins Gespr\u00e4ch zu kommen, sich auszutauschen und zu vernetzen. Ziel ist es, Best Practices sichtbar zu machen, Erfahrungen auszutauschen und den Dialog \u00fcber den Umgang mit Forschungsdaten \u00fcber die vier BUA-H\u00e4user hinweg auszubauen.
\nIm Rahmen dieses Hands-on-Workshops werden Konzepte zum effizienten, reproduzierbaren und nachvollziehbaren Arbeiten mit Forschungsdaten vermittelt. Ziel ist es, die Teilnehmenden mit verschiedenen Werkzeugen vertraut zu machen und das Bewusstsein f\u00fcr Computational Thinking, Automatisierung sowie die Optimierung eigener Arbeitsprozesse zu sch\u00e4rfen.
\nAm 23.10.2026 von\u202f9\u201316:30\u202fUhr diskutieren Expert*innen in Berlin-Mitte im Workshop \"Resilienz & Sicherheit von wissenschaftlichen Informationsinfrastrukturen\" \u00fcber Risiken und Chancen f\u00fcr offene Forschung, digitale Souver\u00e4nit\u00e4t und Dual\u2011Use. Vortr\u00e4ge, Panels und Praxis\u2011Workshops zu MINT und Digital Humanities geben Tipps zum Datenschutz, zu Open\u2011Source\u2011L\u00f6sungen und zum Aufbau resilienter Daten\u2011Infrastrukturen.\u00a0
\nIm Forschungsalltag stehen Forschende regelm\u00e4\u00dfig vor urheberrechtlichen Fragen: Welche Inhalte darf ich in meiner Arbeit verwenden? Unter welchen Bedingungen kann ich Daten und Materialien offen teilen? Wie gehe ich mit KI-Tools und deren Trainingsdaten rechtssicher um? Dieser Workshop bietet praxisnahe Orientierung f\u00fcr den sicheren Umgang mit gesch\u00fctzten Inhalten und Lizenzen in der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit.
\nIn our three-part workshop series, we explore the relationship between the technical aspects, practical applications and critical reflection of the use of AI in research data management. Participants will learn about various AI tools and use cases for research data management, test, and develop criteria for the meaningful and responsible use of AI in their own work.
\nweiter zu November 2026
","doi":"https://doi.org/10.59350/pzvzm-f9w08","guid":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/?p=4297","language":"de","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","published_at":1788220800,"rid":"208kg-aed59","summary":"Unsere monatliche Rubrik zu aktuellen Veranstaltungen rund um Open Research. Anmerkung zu dieser Rubrik: Das Open Research Office Berlin erstellt monatlich eine \u00dcbersicht \u00fcber Termine und Veranstaltungen zu Open Access und Open Research in Berlin bzw. an Berliner Einrichtungen.","tags":["Veranstaltungshinweise"],"title":"Veranstaltungshinweise Oktober 2026","updated_at":1791876612,"url":"https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/open-research-berlin/2026/09/01/veranstaltungshinweise-oktober-2026/","version":"v1"}],"out_of":57795,"page":1,"per_page":10,"total-results":57795}