The Geneva Workshop on Innovations in Scholarly Communication, otherwise known as OAI, was back this year for its 14th iteration. The main conference took place online on 10-14 November 2025. Running since 2001, the OAI conference is a fantastic showcase of new topics and deep dives into what is happening around the world in different areas of scholarly communication. In connection with the shift of the conference to an online format, the past two conferences have included the option to be a part of the programme by hosting satellite events. 

Therefore, on Thursday 27 November, the UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship hosted a small satellite event focused on the theme of Research Infrastructure, taken from day 2 of the OAI14 programme.  

The session started by watching the recording of the conference keynote from day 2, Building a Resilient Open Science Ecosystem in Africa: The UbuntuNet Alliance Model, presented by Revelation Nyirongo. The talk discussed the regional research and education network that has been developed to serve Eastern and Southern Africa. The significant development of this open science ecosystem is a great example of how collaboration can better support scholarly communication. This approach seems to be a brilliant way to address the unique challenges facing African researchers and institutions, and it was especially notable to the group in the room that the focus was on people as much as tools. Revelation spoke at length of the importance to the project of the ‘human capital’ and how training and supporting users of tools was as important as creating the ecosystem itself. The final thoughts from the session particularly resonated with the people in the room – the fact that the research and education community decided not to wait for someone else to do the work, not to ask for permission, just to act and create what was needed for their communities.  

Although the group of attendees was small, the diversity of the group meant that the talk prompted a wide-ranging discussion, about the project described, whether similar interconnected infrastructures would work between institutions in the UK, and even some speculation about the European Open Science Cloud, and the current AHRC project investigating the possibilities of implementing a UK repository for practice-research.  

After time for discussion between the participants, and a break for snacks, the programme moved on to our UK speakers. First up we heard from Hugh Shanahan, Professor of Open Science at Royal Holloway on the topic of libraries as research infrastructures, as well as being treated to a fascinating glimpse into some current research around vulnerabilities in infrastructures associated with preprint services around the world. As this data is going to be shared in an upcoming paper from Hugh and his team, we will endeavour not to spoil the surprise and update this article with the details later!  

Image by Alejandro Salinas Lopez on UCL imagestore

It was interesting that despite no prior knowledge of the keynote chosen for the event, Hugh started by describing once again, that people should be core in our thinking. Making the important point that we shouldn’t first think of research infrastructures as machines and systems and labs, but of the people that are core to all of them. People keep services running, they develop systems, they train users, without human infrastructure there is no physical infrastructure.  

Our next speaker was Dr Louise Saul, Enterprise Fellow and Network+ Coordinator for CaSDaR (Careers and Skills for Data Driven Research) at the University of Southampton. Despite now representing CaSDaR, Louise joined us to talk about her previous work coordinating community engagement for PSDI (Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure).  

The PSDI project aimed to develop an integrated data infrastructure for the physical sciences in response. The work responded to a statement of needs by users which covered issues such as access to reusable structured data sets, proprietary formats that lacking interoperability, rising costs, and competing standards, among others. The needs statement also included the human element, research groups that felt very tied to specific standards and finding it difficult to make change happen, as well as lack of data management knowledge and skills in a broader sense. This ambitious project used a principles-led approach to develop services and tools for the community. The bulk of Louise’s talk however concentrated on a different issue, that of limitations to open access.  

Although all of the tools created by PSDI are shared as openly as possible, there are a number which are Members-Only open access and the reasoning behind these are interesting. Some are to do with licenses applied to pieces of code written by people external to the project, or needing a login for access to specific external tools, but the other considerations were more interesting, the considerations of evidence. By creating an access layer for members, it allows members of the project to understand who is using their tools, what their areas of research are, and what they are being used for; all valuable information for their future funding, development and growth.  

Image by Alejandro Walter Salinas Lopez on UCL imagestore

This raised an important point for discussion and one that applies to numerous types of research output, the concept of ‘as open as possible.’ The group closed out the session with an interesting discussion of the different applications of that phrase, and the fact that closing data or code, or any other type of material doesn’t necessarily just have to be for anonymity or licensing reasons. Sometimes there can be a range of other beneficial uses for data gathered from requiring people to login or register to use a tool, or even commercialising research while making elements openly available, something that was covered elsewhere in the OAI programme.  

Overall, the event was a brilliant series of talks and discussions between a small but close-knit group of experts from local institutions. It was not only a really enjoyable afternoon, but also a great opportunity for members of the community to come together to discuss issues freely with no agenda. We might even do something similar again next year to continue these conversations. Watch this space!  

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