News
Open Science Festival 2025: call for contributions and Leo Waaijers Award nominees
The Open Science Festival will take place on 24 October 2025 at the University of Groningen. The call for contributions opens at the end of May.
During the festival, the second Leo Waaijers Open Science Award will be presented. This award recognises an individual or group that has taken a bold, inspiring, innovative, mobilising, or impactful initiative in the field of Open Science in recent years.
Pre-announcement: call for contributions
Researchers, educators, policy makers, support staff, and other members of the open science community will be invited to submit proposals for:
- Workshops
- Poster presentations
- Stands at the information market
Whether you’re working on FAIR data, citizen science, public engagement, open access, open education, open hardware, open research software, or recognition and rewards—or any other aspect of Open Science—this is your opportunity to connect and contribute. Details about the submission process will be announced once the call is open in late May at www.opensciencefestival.nl and the festival’s social media channels.
About the Leo Waaijers Open Science Award & procedure
The award is an initiative of UKB, the partnership of the 13 university libraries and the Royal Library of the Netherlands. The aim of the award is to highlight Open Science initiatives and thereby encourage and inspire others.
Please complete the nomination form in full by 1 September. You can nominate yourself or someone else.
The jury will announce a first selection of nominations in mid-September, based on the criteria below. The winner will be announced on 24 October at the Open Science Festival in Groningen. The jury consists of Anna van ‘t Veer (Leiden, winner of the first Leo Waaijers Open Science Award), Hubert Krekels (WUR) and Maurits van der Graaf (Pleiade).
The criteria for the award are:
- The Open Science initiative is (at least partly) of Dutch origin (an internationally focused initiative is allowed, of course);
- The initiative is not older than 5 years;
- Criteria for assessing the Open Science initiative: bold and/or inspiring and/or innovative and/or impactful and/or mobilising.
The prize consists of a memento. The prize winner will be communicated widely. For questions, please contact Maurits van der Graaf. You can also contact WUR's Open Science & Education Programme.
In the footsteps of Leo Waaijers
Leo Waaijers (1938 – 2023) was a tireless fighter for Open Access and for restoring the balance of power between public and private actors in the scientific domain. Leo was very active in the scientific information world for 35 years, bombarding it with innovative ideas, proposals and action plans. With the Leo Waaijers Award, UKB wants to inspire others to follow in his footsteps.