Selangor Journal

Malaysia open science platform strengthens practice of sharing research raw data

KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 — The Academy of Sciences Malaysia today signed a collaboration agreement with five research universities in developing the Malaysia Open Science Platform (MOSP) to strengthen national research raw data sharing practices.

The universities are Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said the five varsities would be pioneers for research raw data sharing practices in line with global efforts to make scientific knowledge more openly available.

“Unesco defines open science as a movement and practice aimed at making existing scientific knowledge openly available, easily accessible and reusable by all.

“I was told that other countries, like Australia and Japan, also encouraged open science via the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and Research Centre for Open Science (RCOS) platforms,” he said at the MOSP collaboration agreement signing ceremony today.

Dr Adham said the initiative, which was first spearheaded by his ministry in 2019, would increase transdisciplinarity cooperation between experts and increase research results that could be a solution to various issues facing the country.

“Through this platform, the public could generally have access to research projects that have been carried out, especially those financed through public funding and hopefully this will drive the country’s innovation,” he said.

Speaking on the advantages of open science practices, Dr Adham said they would improve the research ecosystem so that cooperation and knowledge sharing could be enhanced for the good of society.

Meanwhile, Academy of Sciences Malaysia president Prof Emerita Datuk Asma Ismail said the setting up of the MOSP would also enable research raw data sponsored by public funding to be protected and kept in the depository controlled by the government.

She also said that open science, which gave birth to the democratisation of science, would also comprehensively benefit Malaysia, which now ranks 24th in the world in the production of scientific publications.

“The research landscape in Malaysia shows that 368,000 research papers have been produced since 2010, with over 1.7 million citations and over 15,699 domestic patents filed from 2001 to 2017,” Asma said.

— Bernama

Top Picks

Police arrests French-Israeli man with six guns in Kuala Lumpur

Litrak’s toll rebate prog for Damansara-Puchong Expressway users ends April 1