Reflecting on a Week of Conversation and Action at the Intersection of Open Knowledge and Climate Justice
International Open Access Week 2022 and its theme of “Open for Climate Justice” created new connections between the open knowledge and climate movements. Advocates around the world launched tools and resources, announced new initiatives, published theme-related articles, and discussed how open knowledge can advance Climate Justice.
Here is just a sample of the actions taken, collaborations launched, resources produced, and presentations given over the course of this year’s Open Access Week:
Action, Collaborations, and Resources Advancing “Open for Climate Justice”
The #SemanticClimate group, which develops free open-access tools, hosted an asynchronous hackathon called “Formats for Future,” intended to liberate climate reports by making their content accessible, usable, and semantified.
Western Michigan University Libraries produced a limited-podcast series, “Talking Open for Climate Justice” available here.
Open Access Australasia and CAUL organized a collaboration over the course of Open Access Week to create a guide to resources of climate science and Climate Justice with a local focus. The resulting OER will be made available soon and should be linked from this page.
COPIM (Community-led Open Publication Infrastructures for Monographs) shared interviews with its team about their experiences working remotely while building major pieces of infrastructure together. See “Open Access Week 2022: How to run a major international project with a mini carbon footprint.”
The University of Edinburgh made 14 videos available from an online course on climate change taught in a collaboration between leading experts at the university and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
The University of Toronto published an article about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy (JCCPE) making its content available to all without any cost to authors by participating in a Subscribe to Open model. In 2023, the Journal will publish a special issue dedicated to climate resilience and climate justice.
It was announced during OA Week that “Open Access as a Common and Public Good in Angola: South-South Collaboration,” will be the focus of a book talk on Nov. 4 broadcast in Spanish with interpretation in English and Portuguese.
MIT Libraries published an article exploring the intersections of open knowledge and the MIT Equitable Resilience Framework, a toolkit for policymakers, makes equity, justice, and community input a fundamental part of problem solving around climate change.
Portland State University Library created a Climate Justice Collection to highlight the work of PSU researchers, foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, facilitate the co-creation of original research, and support climate advocacy.
The University of Colorado Boulder Libraries created an online game asking participants to consider how you as an academic researcher would balance sharing knowledge and tackling the climate crisis against the current academic landscape.
Broader Conversations Beyond This Year’s Theme
ALLEA (the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities) issued a statement on Aligning Intellectual Property Rights with Open Science that examines the current patent system in the context of the ideals and objectives of open science
Cornell University Library hosted a conversation on “What Does ‘Open Access’ Look Like for the Incarcerated?” discussing how the Cornell Prison Education Program and the university library work together to provide access to information to those receiving an education while incarcerated.
Recorded Presentations Addressing This Year’s Theme
Using Open Data from Remote Sensing for assessment of Ecosystem Health with Jakub Zelený (People in Need) [Event Page / Recording]
Pratt and Punctum: A Program on Open Access and Climate Justice [Event Page / Recording]
Open for Climate Justice: To Solve the World’s Biggest Problems We Need the Knowledge About Them to Be Open [Event Page / Recording linked here when available]
Open and Engaged 2022: Climate research in GLAM, digital infrastructure and skills to open collections [Event Page / Recording]
Learn Climate with Open MIT Resources [Event Page / Recording]
Panel with Penn State faculty on "Open for Climate Justice [Event Page / Recording]
Climate injustice in the Pacific: how can open science support vulnerable communities? [Event Page / Recording]
The double edged sword of openness in climate science [Event Page / Recording]
Look at the Evidence: Climate Journalism and Open Science [Event Page / Recording]
All together now: Citizen Science and Climate Justice [Event Page / Recording]
Real world impacts: how does open access tackle climate (in)justice? [Event Page / Recording]
Wikimedia collaborations for climate research knowledge sharing [Event Page / Recording]
Climate Justice Pub[Pub] Crawl [Event Page / Recording]
Open for Climate Justice: Conversations with the Earth [Event Page / Recording linked here when available]
EMBL Open Science for Climate Justice [Event Page / Recording]
This work must continue year round, and the wide variety of actions throughout this year’s Open Access Week can serve as inspiration and support for local action. Thanks to the advocates around the world who organized, took action, and made this year’s theme a success.