SPARC, the Right to Research Coalition and the Max Planck Society will host OpenCon 2017 will take place on November 11-13 in Berlin, Germany at the Max Planck Society’s Harnack House.

OpenCon is more than a conference. It’s a platform for the next generation to learn about Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data, develop critical skills, and catalyze action toward a more open system for sharing the world’s information—from scholarly and scientific research, to educational materials, to digital research data. OpenCon 2017 is at the center of a growing community of thousands of students and early career academic professionals from across the world working to create an open system for research and education.

OpenCon brings together the most energetic, engaged students and early career academic professionals—regardless of their ability to cover travel costs. Because of this, attendance at OpenCon is by application only, and the majority of past participants have received travel scholarships.

Applications to attend OpenCon 2017 in Berlin, Germany will open on June 27th. For more information about the conference and to sign up for updates, visit www.opencon2017.org/updates.

OpenCon 2017’s three-day program will begin with two days of keynotes, panels, and interactive workshops. OpenCon places an emphasis on highlighting diverse, early career voices, while complementing them with leading experts, such as Jimmy Wales (Co-founder of Wikipedia), Amy Rosenbaum (Director of Legislative Affairs to US President Barack Obama), and Julia Reda (Member of the European Parliament). The third day will feature an all-day “do-a-thon,” where participants have the opportunity to craft new campaigns, lay the foundations for new resources, and form collaborations that will continue long after the November conference is over.

The OpenCon conference and community are only possible with the support of leading organizations with a strong commitment to support student and early career academic professional involvement across Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data. We deeply appreciate the support of our past sponsors, including the Max Planck Society, PLOS, the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, eLife, BioMed Central, SpringerOpen, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Wikimedia Foundation, Overleaf, Microsoft Research, Figshare, Creative Commons USA, and the more than 30 universities and organizations that have sponsored individual scholarships.