BOSC 2023, the 24th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Open Science
• Computational Biology

Background:

• The 24th annual Bioinformatics Open Source Conference (BOSC 2023) was integrated into the Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and European Conference on Computational Biology (ISMB/ECCB 2023) meeting.
• BOSC, established in 2000, is a leading annual event focused on open-source bioinformatics and open science principles.
• The 2023 conference adopted a hybrid format, with in-person activities in Lyon, France, and online participation, mirroring the structure of ISMB 2022.

Discussion:

• ISMB/ECCB 2023 saw significant attendance, with over 2100 in-person and 900 online participants, while BOSC sessions engaged approximately 200 attendees.
• The conference featured 43 talks and 49 posters, alongside two prominent keynote addresses focusing on open collaboration and data sovereignty.
• A joint session with the Bio-Ontologies COSI and a concluding panel on Open and Ethical Data Sharing highlighted key areas of discussion.

Key Insights:

• Keynote speakers addressed pioneering scientific progress through open collaboration and navigating the complexities of scientific altruism versus capitalist extraction with solutions like Zero Trust and Federated Data Sovereignty.
• The integration of BOSC within the larger ISMB/ECCB conference facilitated broader engagement with open-source principles in bioinformatics and computational biology.
• The CollaborationFest event provided a platform for synergistic idea exchange, project planning, and software development among participants.

Outlook:

• Continued emphasis on open collaboration and ethical data sharing is crucial for advancing scientific progress.
• The hybrid format of BOSC 2023 demonstrated successful engagement strategies for a global scientific community.
• Future BOSC conferences will likely continue to foster innovation in open-source tools and methodologies within bioinformatics.