The World Science Day for Peace and Development 2019 will be devoted to the theme of “Open Science, leaving no one behind”. Celebrated every 10 November, World Science Day for Peace and Development highlights the important role of science in society and underlines the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives. Open Science is not only an issue of science being open to the research community, as in “open access” and “open data”, but refers to a science open to society. In spite of the progress made in recent years, we are still witnessing great disparities across and within different regions and different countries when it comes to accessing science, technology and innovation (STI) and enjoying their benefits. To address these disparities and close the existing STI gaps, Open Science is an important step in the right direction.
GeoForAll community has been contributing to Open Science and Open Education over many years. For example, gvSIG Batovi is an excellent example of a successful initiative in Open Principles in Science and Education. Through their focus on Open Principles in Education they have now provided high quality spatial education to students in all schools across Uruguay. Thanks to the Plan Ceibal they also have free laptops for all Primary and Secondary students in the country so they truly have the opportunity to reach every student in the country with high quality teaching and learning tools. Details at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orwN9K07XPo (Video with English translation).
Spatial Education is key for tackling Climate Change. GeoForAll lab at the UNEP/GRID-Warsaw Centre in Poland and has been doing pioneering work on Environmental Management, Active Education over many years. Details at https://www.gridw.pl/en/opensourcegeolab
One of the inspiring work that they are involved is the GIS at School http://www.edugis.pl/en/images/stories/guide/gis-at-school.pdf
It is important to expand ideas for Teacher Training programs in Climate education and provide geoeducation and STEM education opportunities [1] to all students globally. We thank all colleagues for their selfless efforts over many years which has helped us to make this possible.
Open Science has the potential to significantly increase scientific collaboration and discovery and to facilitate adoption of the well‐adapted technologies. It can be a game changer for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in Africa, developing countries, and Small Island Developing States . Let us embrace open science as a tool for making science more accessible, scientific process more inclusive and the outputs of science more readily available for all!
Details at https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/worldscienceday
