Sharing research data in the fight against Ebola

"Sharing research findings from publications on Ebola will help us to fight the infectious disease. NWO and ZonMw support Wellcome Trust's international call to make these publications and research findings openly accessible as soon as possible. Their call is in response to the new outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the serious threat to public health that it poses. Open Access The science-funding bodies NWO and ZonMw believe that research findings obtained with public funding should be made openly accessible. This applies to both academic publications and research data. This will enable researchers, companies and social institutions to use valuable knowledge. That is why NWO and ZonMw endorse the call issued by Wellcome Trust and various international non-profit organisations to make research findings that can help fight Ebola open access. Wellcome is an independent charitable foundation that supports scientists in solving major medical problems. Enabling knowledge use Jeroen Geurts, chair of ZonMw: 'This call can actually serve as the driving force to curb this and future crises.' Stan Gielen, chair of NWO: 'Now is the time to illustrate the power of open science.' Sharing this data with society enables researchers, companies and social institutions to use this valuable knowledge in a targeted manner. The science-funding bodies are therefore calling on: Journals to make all publications, in any form whatsoever (articles, pre-prints), including the underlying data, available as open access resources as quickly as possible Scientists who are conducting research on Ebola to do their best to share their findings as quickly as possible About NWO & ZonMw NWO and ZonMw are among the largest science-funding bodies in the Netherlands. Each year NWO invests more than 800 million euros in approximately 6,000 research projects at universities and knowledge institutions. ZonMw funds health research and encourages the use of the knowledge that this research produces. These organisations therefore contribute to quality and innovation in science and progress in society. Moreover, they are joint drivers of national activities for the optimal (re)use of data. Together they signed the National Plan Open Science last year. The partners’ aim is to achieve 100% open access in the Netherlands by 2020."