About Open Science and Autonomy of Science

This article invites us to a concise walk through the past, offering insights defined by the major challenges science encountered during the centuries. Some lessons for today and tomorrow are enumerated in the three sections of the article, and they go beyond the relatively few perspectives offered by today's Data Science: Open Science (OS) is what has always happened and is nothing new, because science has always sought to be open. Esthetical values played a relevant role in the past. Former scientists recognized the intrinsic relation between the way they opened science and the way they followed the principles of beauty and the sense of esthetic. Their groundbreaking heritage still inspires us in being ready to open new ways in science. Whereas Latin was the original lingua franca of European science, and English is the recent lingua franca, the new lingua franca is software. Pieces of software are the filter, which connect researchers to the world, through layers of data. They assist in observing, in choosing, and in selecting. Open scientists should be aware of the fact that their autonomy in science depends on the quality of these pieces. Another lesson is that ethics—regarded as a source of innovative activities—must be a core component of innovative processes in OS, because society needs a responsible use of data and algorithms in corresponding practices that serve OS.

. Of relevance is the way how science was created and then transmitted in medieval times. The schola medica salernitana-Medical Salernitan School-e.g., (founded in Salerno, Italy, in the 9th century, also a Benedictine creation), became the most important source of medical knowledge in Western Europe at that time. Arabic medical treatises, some of them translations of Greek texts, others originally written in Arabic, were accumulated in the Benedictine libraries, where they were translated into the then scientific lingua franca, Latin. 6). Particular attention should be paid to the language of science. Latin was still relevant, and it has preserved its importance until nowadays  . Latin was the predominant language of communication across Europe. Of the editions from the XVI century which have survived, it is estimated that 21,329 are in Latin, 3,308 in German, 2,433 in Italian, 1,780 in French, 571 in Dutch, 437 in Spanish, and only 240 in English [4]. 7). While in the medieval times Medical Salernitan School included women in their medical and teaching staff, over time women were excluded to a large extent by the holders of data from the transmission mechanisms of science and knowledge. 8). OS and non-OS are not exclusively about digital data, stored on carriers or disks, which result from observations. Oral tradition has always competed with written tradition, and in a world governed by data we tend to forget or diminish the relevance of oral traditions  . 9). Access to and dissemination of science changed dramatically through the impact of the printing revolution  . That is a perfect example of how technological evolution changed dissemination of science: While it opened science, it also introduced heavy commercial interests and interfered with purposes of scientific work, operating directly in the value chain of the scientific processes  . 10). Deriving from the above-mentioned point of view, we can differentiate diverse categories of players in science in the past: the observing actors (scientists), then the custodians of science, which preserved for future generations the knowledge, structuring it, categorizing it, sometimes studying it, teaching it, and closing access to it. We always tend to forget that the custodians of science also operated-and in some cultures they still do-by memorizing at heart knowledge, and not recording it on books. By doing so, they are single points of entry to certain disciplines, and therefore they represent forms of restricted access to science.
Over the time new players joined the above-mentioned categories: the traders of science. They were entities which intermediated results and findings, trading science, regarding it as a good. Today we  Compare: Francoise Waquet, Le latin ou l'empire d'un signe. XVIe-XXe siècle, 1998. Starting with the XVI century, and for more than two centuries, Latin became the language of modern science, literature, diplomacy, and culture.  A further good example is the performing arts and scientific data and information related to these disciplines. Another example is instruments, any kind of instruments/tools. Best products are the instruments that are created based on research processes, which in turn are based on observations and traditions, preserving knowledge orally passed from master to scholar. The same is true in medicine: cardiac surgeons demonstrate innovative techniques and instruments to scholars, etc.  See also: Cristina Dondi (curator), Printing Evolution, 1450-1500, Fifty Years that Changed Europe, 2018.  It is amazing to observe how around the year 1500 several manufacturing entities (booksellers and publishers) based in the Republic of Venice transformed and widened the access to science, dramatically changing the destiny of the manuscripts. We are now witnessing a similar dramatic process, triggered globally by an American company, Amazon. We should never forget that the success of Amazon originated in the trading of books.
experience further new categories of players in science, also because of evolutions due to the digital data revolution.
2 About today's science: Who produces knowledge? Researchers, who else? How is science produced? 1). In the last 30 years, more than 800 European universities experienced some tortuous developments marked by diverse mentality shifts, and the change of direction towards OS is just one of them. Actually, the Typographic Man, grown up through centuries of the Gutenberg Galaxy [5]  , has become a Digital Man. And we are still missing the generation of Digital Rectors, who think digitally. 2). The evolution is still taking places, at different speed. We are witnessing some generation gaps, which are hard to be bridged. The next generation of colleagues (the younger one) is faster in this movement  , while representatives of the former generation are followers. 3). To follow means to be lag behind evolution. Some of these followers pretend to be digital, but they are mostly literally translating analogue thinking into digital thinking. That is why many processes in data management are so slow or inefficient. The COVID-19 pandemic is unveiling this situation in an inexorable way. Decision makers at universities are awaiting changes, while the vast majority of citizens and industry are contributing actively to the creation of data pools, which are then managed through huge centralized enterprises, which act globally following one single clear policy, and are able to require from all users to comply with it at a global scale. Data are important, information, too  11 . Manifestly only a fistful of European RPOs decree a data management policy, maintaining their sovereignty on services and on data, among them their own publications. They are not able to decide when, and how access to the data (and publications) is managed, even though the data are produced within the framework which virtually should be under their control. Furthermore, the majority of the 27 member states (MSs) of the EU and of the ten associated countries participating in the EOSC neither have OS policies in place, nor policies for educational resources, nor cultural heritage policies [10].
 The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man offers an analysis of the effects of mass media, especially the printing press, on European culture and human consciousness. It popularized the terms Gutenberg Galaxy, which we may regard today with reference to the accumulated body of recorded works of human art and knowledge, especially books; and: global village, which refers to the idea that mass communication allows a village-like mindset to apply to the entire world; in the present article the "village" is metaphorically populated by the researcher's community and the research supporting units (like libraries). Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gutenberg_Galaxy  Compare: "Needs and requirements for future research environments with researchers" [6]. Supplement to: "Co-creating EOSC: University Networks shaping EOSC" [7]. The goal of this series of workshops was to elaborate in 2020 visions on how research will be conducted in 5 to 15 years and what the effect and impact on research infrastructures will be. The findings were fed directly into the work of the EOSC Executive Board (EB) and Working Groups (WGs), thus providing crucial input for the development of the EOSC. 4). RPOs are struggling and they are caught in their efforts in order to fulfil their institutional missions, first, second and third mission (that is teaching, research, and public service). Universities' missions are to be considered multilayered, therefore dynamic and fluid. The mission of transformation is not contemplated in this kind of Trinity, neither the mission of trans nationalization. However, Internet and digitization are open and transnational by definition. A Web of FAIR Data and Services, populated by virtual machines, whose processes are governed by algorithms is not foreseen in the present conceptual framework of European universities and by their skilled decision-making personnel. Their data and services are not machine actionable and the actual digital revolution is rapidly disrupting structures. 5). RPOs and their funders ask themselves: Who is really producing knowledge? Obviously, the researchers, but who else is participating in knowledge production? And now the crucial question: Who is actively participating in the current OS challenge? What to say about the involved machines?
What is e.g., their legal status (IPRs) in this transnational context? Which are the rules of participation to this race? Is it desirable to use machines or rather: What are the prerequisites for using machines in order to preserve the concept of OS? 6). The dominant role of infrastructures and e-infrastructures becomes more and more evident. An actual example (July 2020): Two of the four founding members of the the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Association are representatives of infrastructures  12 . 7). Their role is crucial in enabling, securing, and maintaining research processes, and in communicating science. The integrated techniques of communications they offer, make sure that during the COVID-19 pandemic all of us are transmitting scientific communication via devices and in this way, we are contributing more and more to the data deluge. 8). This method of communication in science has of course collateral effects. High-level decision makers are not fully aware of the implications derived from of e-infrastructures in the daily research and educational process (second and first mission). Also, the impact on cultural heritage (third mission) is not clear. 9). Avoiding deterioration of content, from Source of data to Destinatary of data is the next grand challenge. Machines are indeed filtering the communication processes between two or more humans, and the machines are between them, like a sandwich. They receive, take over, and transform voice into data, transport, filter, translate and deliver. 10). As stated, Latin language was the dominant carrier of scientific knowledge. At first glance, English is considered to be the new lingua franca in science. This is wrong, or at least only partially true. Indeed, the most relevant language in science is software, which is using English terms. Who owns this language (software), rules the scene. Machines do.
The four members are: CESAER https://www.cesaer.org/, CSIC https://www.csic.es/, GEANT https://www.geant.org/ and GARR https://www.garr.it/en/. The EOSC Association was founded in July 2020. 11). RPOs are also experiencing a cognitive decline, which can be defined as a form of digital dementia. The decision makers of the oldest European universities are able to search and find valuable information concerning the academic life of their institution in their archives, even if this information is related to scientific processes, or facts that occurred 600 years ago.

About Open Science and Autonomy of Science
The institutions remember very well what happened in their youth. However, while they are aging, they experience loss of memory and huge difficulties in retrieving intelligently valuable data related to events that came into existence in their institutions, e.g.,15 years ago. These events were generated via "modern means of communication" whose content, formats or language has gone lost forever, being never or incorrectly recorded [11]  13 . 12). In this context a particular relevance is assigned to the roles of legal frames, policies and of ethical issues, especially when the focus lies on the data life cycle. Along this cycle, the data may experience different kinds of attributes. The data can start their life as Open Data (OD), be transformed into non-OD, can experience the status of restricted access data, and be at the end exposed to Internet, once again as OD. 13). The challenges for OS are neither the preservation of data, nor the sharing of data. The real challenges are a) ensuring permanent access to data; b) ensuring the correct sharing of access to data; c) ensuring the correct interpretation of data through either machines or humans; d) the deletion of data, including the right to oblivion; e) the identification of the correct use of legal means; f) the correct understanding of the role of ethical issues; g) the awareness of the subordinate role of technical issues in this context. 14). Our modern Western societies, especially in Europe, recognize through their legislation the autonomy of science, underlining the fact, that science is of crucial relevance for our societies and for societal development, there including, academic teaching, research and cultural heritage (as mentioned, the three pillars of OS). Constitutional systems, mainly European ones, explicitly recognize freedom of research and teaching arts and science  14 .
 13 See this example [11]. Full report: Researchers and Their Data. Results of an Austrian Survey (PDF Full Report/en): https:// phaidra.univie.ac.at/detail_object/o:409318. The survey shows among others: when researchers leave the institution, only 43% of data remain at the institution; 54% of researchers share research data through means like e-mail or flash drives, and not through repositories; Access to data is offered only in 14% of the cases, which means that in 86% of the cases a (theoretical) approach to data through machines would not be possible. Similar results are obtained through similar surveys in other countries. This figure highlights further aspects of digital dementia occurring at our RPOs.  14 For instance, article 5 of the German Constitution states that "Art and science research and teaching are free", article 33 of the Italian Constitution establishes that "The arts and sciences as well as their teaching are free" and article 59 of the Slovenian Constitution states that "Freedom of scientific research and artistic endeavor shall be free". Italian Constitution also states that "The Republic promotes cultural development and scientific and technical research" (art. 9), the Spanish Constitution, enacts that "public authorities shall promote science and scientific and technical research for the benefit of general interest" (art. 44) and, also, the Greek Constitution, whose article 16 establishes that art, science, research and their teaching are free, and their promotion is mandatory for the state. Same situation in Switzerland (art. 20) and in Austria, where "science and its teaching are free" (art. 5) and according to article 17.a of Austrian constitution "artistic creation, the teaching of art and its teaching are free". 15). Some reflections about the resurrected relevance of ethics. Nowadays when we talk about ethics we refer to the ancient Greeks, to their concepts, that were discussed more than 2000 years ago (by the way many of them were working and reflecting in geographical regions we today call Greece, Turkey (mainly Mediterranean coast), Egypt (and its famous libraries) or Sicily (mainly Syracuse). 16). At that time scientists like Archimedes (Syracuse) observed and used their senses in order to produce science. And using their faculty of perceiving by means of sensory organs they then decided about the actions they would like to undertake. 17). This was the way they interacted with the world. This mechanism is very similar to what we are doing now. We have machines, equipped with sensors, with some specialized function or mechanism (such as machine actionable sight, digital hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching) by which a machine receives and responds to external or internal impulses. Archimedes could cover all these processes by himself. We however are not able to do so, although the mechanisms are very similar. Why? For a simple reason. Between our scientists and the real world, there is a huge layer of data. This amount of data is such a big mountain that the scientist needs a filter, helping him to find a way through, in order to reach out to the world, and this is done by something we call software. So, between science and the world we now have the data and the software related to these data. But we usually tend to forget that these data are not necessarily the reality. Data are only an expression of the reality. 18). At the moment we start to interfere through this software or with these data in another person's life, we need clear and understandable rules that are recognized and accepted by everybody. We define this as a legal frame, which is also related to ethical concepts. 19). Laws without ethics are like reading a text while you are winking. The view on the page must take place without interferences, like an observation done while doing science, which must be clear at the moment it starts, until the moment it matures to findings. Science must be developed without interferences. And so, we need regulations, legal frames and ethical guidelines that enable OS and maintain it alive. We need principles that govern a scientist's behavior or the conducting of a scientific activity, including the infrastructures and the related services. And if these codes of conducts are enriched with a sense of beauty, then we will offer a valid contribution to next generations, adding a further value to the world's heritage. 20). An example? The COVID-19 pandemic is the contextual frame, which surrounds us in this historical moment. Following the COVID-19 urgent calls of the European Commission, we are producing so-called COVID-data for the COVID-vaccines: Humanity needs access to these data. Not only because some obey to utilitarian logics, but because we should also follow sets of ethical principles, or systems of ethical values. This knowledge concerning the COVID pandemic must be freely accessible to all, likewise the vaccines. We all need these, as a fundament for a common knowledge and a common sense of having knowledge shared. 21). Written in bold: No innovation without ethics, therefore no OS without ethics.

About Open Science and Autonomy of Science
3 OS and autonomy of science: Lessons learned from the past and conclusions 1). As already mentioned, OS is what has always happened and is nothing new. Both, teaching activities and the libraries characterized knowledge management and access to knowledge, however subsequent to the appearance of the traders of science something slightly changed in scientific processes. Nowadays these stakeholders are intrinsically included in the scientific processes, such that they are perverting the meaning and the direction of scientific work, thus threatening OS. Furthermore, they are constantly draining valuable resources for their economic interests. They first focused on controlling dissemination mechanism (publishing), then controlling ownership of the publications, and they are now literally grabbing the data. RPOs should reclaim their sovereignty on their intellectual properties, and reappropriate them. The adoption of policies is needed, and they are excellent instruments, but RPOs should request from their governments the protection they need, requiring that the established constitutional rights concerning freedom of science, arts and academic teaching should be translated into legal frameworks, with the purpose to repress the economic interferences in the scientific processes and reinforce autonomy of science. 2). In order to ensure autonomy, the access to OS should be free at point of use, and it means free from economic pressure. 3). Modern societies have understood the relevance of science for citizens. Therefore, several levels of protection are given to freedom of science: At a first basic level, this freedom receives the same protection given to all other fundamental rights-and here we also refer to the freedom of thought and expression; at a second level, we can recognize a specific and expressed constitutional recognition for such a fundamental freedom; and finally, at a possible third level, the State is engaged in promoting scientific research in an inclusive way [12]. The difference to former times is, that the fruition of these constitutional rights regarding the freedom of science, and the explicit connection to arts and artistic creation are reserved to all citizens, independently of provenance, race, religion and above all gender  15 . OS should always show and preserve its inclusive character. 4). Legal frames are mostly an emanation of constitutional law. Good government models and codes of conduct in RPOs are the translation of these legal frames into daily research life. They should reflect the aims of OS and each single researcher should be aware of the relevance of that. 5). The mastery of literacy is fundamental for OS, so the possession of language structures. Open scientists should be aware, that the lingua franca of OS is software. 6). Pieces of software are the filter that connects researchers to the world, through layers of data. They assist in observing, in choosing, and in selecting. Open scientists should be aware of the fact, that their autonomy in science depends on the quality of these pieces. They also assist in retrieving intelligently and analyzing valuable data. 7). The findings derived from science had always a great societal impact (e.g., in architecture, arts, medicine, or legislation). A visible expression of this impact is the foundation of more than 800

About Open Science and Autonomy of Science
European universities and their contribution to World Cultural Heritage. Although not every citizen had the opportunity to be included in these processes, each society was (and still is) proud to show the sense of beauty which inspired the creation of its cultural heritage.
Cultural heritage has to be seen as a part of OS, and its vital energy is feeding the reservoir of new recruits in science. "Wide spread literacy and the dissemination of knowledge are distinctive traits of modern societies. They have high impact on values of the society, especially expressed through their inclusive character. This goes with understanding, preservation and dissemination of the cultural heritage which made it possible"  16 . 8). Review roles and reinvent roles in the OS movement. The research processes are complex, collaboration at equal level between researchers and research support is needed, as well as improved collaboration between humans and machines, as well as codified collaboration in the machine to machine collaboration. 9 b) They performed in cities, which felt to be "free", in a sense, that they were not submitted to the jurisdiction of a king. And their good governance models were aware of the importance of universities and academies  18 ; c) There is an intrinsic relation between the way they opened science and the way they followed the principles of beauty and the sense of esthetic; c) They were aware of the perennial theological and philosophical disquisitions about "the sense of and relevance of beauty".
Beauty and the sense of esthetic have to find a place in modern OS movement. They should be regarded as essential elements of scientific work, because the idea of beauty has always been part of Western culture  19 . 10). Two final comments and a wish, arising from personal observations related to the actual COVID-19 pandemic.

About Open Science and Autonomy of Science
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), humanist, author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer. He epitomised the Renaissance Man. Alberti's writings on architecture continue to influence modern and contemporary architecture stating: "The organicism and nature-worship of Wright, the neat classicism of van der Mies, the regulatory outlines and anthropomorphic, harmonic, modular systems of Le Corbusier, and Kahn's revival of the 'antique' are all elements that tempt one to trace Alberti's influence on modern architecture". Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Battista_Alberti Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Dominican friar, catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. Immensely influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology and the father of Thomism. His "Summa Theologica" is amongst the most influential documents in memdieval theology and continues to be the central point of reference for the philosophy and theology of the Catholic Church. His influence on Western thought is considerable, and much of modern philosophy developed or opposed his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics and political theory. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas Vitruvius: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, (c. 80-70 BC -after c. 15 BC), commonly known as Vitruvius, was a Roman author, architect, civil and military engineer, known for his multi-volume work entitled De Architectura. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of Vitruvian Man. He was also the one who, in 40 BC, invented the idea that all buildings should have three attributes: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas, meaning: strength, utility, and beauty. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvius