The director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and government scientists from countries around the world are calling for publishers to make COVID-19-related research available to the public including in formats where they can apply artificial intelligence (AI) to the task of analyzing the data.
Along with OSTP Director Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, science ministers and chief science advisors from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, and the United Kingdom have joined the call to make COVID-19 research and data available immediately.
“To assist efforts to contain and mitigate the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, basic science research and innovation will be vital to addressing this global crisis. Given the urgency of the situation, it is particularly important that scientists and the public can access research outcomes as soon as possible,” the science leaders wrote in an open access letter.
They called for the information and data to be made available in both “human and machine-readable format that will allow for full text and data mining using [AI] with rights accorded for research re-use and secondary analysis.”
“We, as national leaders on science policy, applaud the efforts of researchers to understand and prevent the infection and spread of COVID-19,” the science leaders wrote. “We also greatly appreciate the funders and publishers who play the important role of supporting, reviewing, and communicating research outcomes and making publications and data available to the global community for scientific research and public awareness.”
