CC Partners with SPARC and EIFL to Launch a 4-Year Open Climate Campaign

"To make open sharing of research outputs the norm in climate science, Creative Commons, SPARC and EIFL are proud to launch a 4-year Open Climate Campaign with funding from Arcadia Fund, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, which builds on planning funds from the Open Society Foundations. Climate change, and the resulting harm to our global biodiversity, is one of the world’s most pressing challenges. While the existence of climate change and the resulting loss of biodiversity is certain, knowledge and data about these global challenges and the possible solutions, mitigations and actions to tackle them are too often not publicly accessible.

Many researchers, governments, and global environmental organizations recognize the importance of sharing research openly to accelerate progress, but lack cohesive strategies and mechanisms to facilitate effective knowledge sharing and collaboration across disciplinary and geographic borders.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the power of open access to democratize knowledge sharing, accelerate discovery, promote research collaboration, and bring together the efforts of global stakeholders to tackle the pandemic took center stage, as scientists embraced the immediate, open sharing of preprints, research articles, data and code. This adoption of openness contributed to the rapid sequencing and sharing of the virus’s genome, the quick development of therapeutics, and the fastest development of effective vaccines in human history. The lessons learned during the pandemic can and should be applied to accelerate progress on other urgent problems facing our society...."