Seminar
Open Science and Authoritarianism: An Interactive Discussion
- Sara Rouhi & Dan Rudmann
- Date
- Friday 16 May 2025
- Time
- Series
- CWTS Research Seminars
- Location
-
Willem Einthoven
Kolffpad 1
2333 BN Leiden - Room
- CWTS Common Rooms
About the seminar
In this webinar, Sara Rouhi (AIP Publishing) and Dan Rudmann (Utrecht University Library) will discuss the implications of the recent attacks of the Trump administration on academic freedom in the US from their perspective as Open Science practitioners.
What conclusions should we draw for Open Science strategies, infrastructures, and business models going forward? How can Open Science help protect research from overt political intervention and 'anticipatory obedience'?
About the presenters
Sara Rouhi is the Director of Open Science and Publishing Innovation at AIP Publishing. Driving AIPP’s open science strategy, she focuses on developing new publishing models and sustainable business strategies to accelerate AIPP’s mission to advance pragmatic, researcher-focused open science.
Rouhi joins AIP Publishing from Public Library of Science (PLOS) where she held business development and publishing development leadership roles. Her work centers at the nexus of new business models, open science/access, and equity. She’s a vocal advocate for pragmatic, sustainable, community-driven open science strategies.
She has a track record of leading agile, award winning teams at PLOS and Digital Science and received numerous awards and recognition for her work in scholarly publishing. She’s based outside of Washington DC, is an avid long-form improviser in the DC comedy scene, and rants on all things #scholcomm, politics, and comedy on Bluesky.
Dan Rudmann is a librarian at Utrecht University focused on institution reform and culture change through open science and community organising. He developed the Utrecht Digital Competency Center, rethinking collaboration, professionalization, and recognition for research support staff throughout the university, and manages the Open Science Community Utrecht to empower researchers seeking alternative forms of university practices.
Prior to working in the Netherlands, Rudmann lived in Matosinhos, Portugal, where he developed community led infrastructure for publishing through the COPIM project. Before that, he worked as a scholarly publisher, record label owner, and alternative pedagogy director in Austin, TX, while earning a PhD in religion at literature.