Town Hall meeting on Open Science at Southbank Centre

• 2.00pm – 4.30pm on 08 June 2011
• Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall

Town Hall meeting on Open Science

Science thrives on the free and open exchange of ideas and data. But as the web opens up access to information, scientists are now having to catch up with rising expectations of transparency.

Scientists face demands for improved access to scientific information both from their colleagues and from the public. They can no longer assume that the way that they work is uninteresting to scientists in other disciplines, bloggers or the general public. But how far should the principle of openness extend? Could it extend to data held by private companies? Should data from patient records be accessible? Is openness necessarily in the public interest, especially when commercial and private individual interests are in play?

The Royal Society invites people to Southbank Centre for a free discussion to feed into its major new policy study on the opportunities and uncertainties of open science: Science as a public enterprise: opening up scientific information.

Speakers include Sir Paul Nurse PRS, Geoffrey Boulton FRS, Sir Mark Walport and  Philip Campbell.

Tickets are free and available by emailing sape@royalsociety.org

The Society has launched a call for evidence associated with this study and we are seeking input from academia, business, industry, Government, interest groups and members of the public to inform this important project. We welcome submissions as soon as possible, and before the 5 August 2011. Information on how to make a submission is available here.