Open Research in the Philippines: The Lessons and Challenges – Open Knowledge International Blog

"This blog is part of the event report series on International Open Data Day 2018. On Saturday 3 March, groups from around the world organised over 400 events to celebrate, promote and spread the use of open data. 45 events received additional support through the Open Knowledge International mini-grants scheme, funded by Hivos, SPARC, Mapbox, the Hewlett Foundation and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The events in this blog were supported through the mini-grants scheme under the Open Research Data theme.

Pioneering discussions on open research in a country where data management is still in the works can be rewarding yet challenging. In celebration of global Open Data Day,  the Institute for Leadership, Empowerment, and Democracy (iLEAD) and Datos.PH initiated small group discussions on March 3, 2018. The organizations, while taking different tracks, have fielded the same question, how can we make data and literature more open for the research community? Gathering over twenty representatives from the academe, government agencies, civil society organizations, and research institutions, iLEAD embarked on a stocktaking exercise to assess the current research landscape in the Philippines. Datos.PH, on the other hand, organized a data hackathon with researchers and students, with the aim of making national datasets more disaggregated and gendered to enable analysis of datasets at the regional level...."