The importance of „Open Science” for agriculture

Abstract

Both agriculture as an research area and its closely re-lated life sciences have developed rapidly over recent decades. The amount of knowledge that comes from day to day is vast and we are in the “Agriculture 4.0” era not by accident. Research-ers representing agricultural science and research audiences often face choice - is open knowledge sources and data are appropriate source for their research or not. The discussion on the scope of open science resources is becoming intense, even though these initiatives are not new. The European Commission’s position is clear – the results of EU-funded research should be as widely disseminated as possible. This will allow to have a broader dis-cussion and develop new knowledge from existing data. It also applies to data relating to agricultural science. The study provides an overview of the current literature and relevant data sources available on the open science web for agricultural science. The article also describes harmful practices related to open access