The application period for OpenCon 2016 on November 12-14 in Washington, DC is now open! The application is available at http://www.opencon2016.org/apply and includes the opportunity to apply for a travel scholarship. Applications will close on July 11th at 11:59pm U.S. Pacific Time.

OpenCon seeks to bring together effective, engaged students and early career academic professionals from around the world to advance Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data—regardless of their ability to pay for travel costs. In OpenCon’s first two years, most attendees received full or partial scholarships to attend the conference. For this reason, attendance at OpenCon is by application only.

The benefits of applying for OpenCon 2016 extend far beyond attending the Washington, DC meeting. It’s an opportunity to find new collaborators, get connected with scholarships to attend related conferences, and be recognized by the community for the work you do to promote openness in research and education! Applications are reviewed by alumni from the OpenCon community, and those applicants whom community members identify as doing key work to advance Open Access, Open Education, or Open Data will receive public recognition.

Students and early career academic professionals of all experience levels are encouraged to apply. We want to support those who have ideas for new projects and initiatives in addition to those who are already leading them. The most important criteria is an interest in advancing Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data and a commitment to taking action.

Speakers at the first two OpenCon conferences have included Jimmy Wales (Co-founder of Wikipedia), Amy Rosenbaum (Director of Legislative Affairs to the President of the United States), Mike Eisen and Pat Brown (Co-founders of PLOS), Julia Reda (Member of the European Parliament), and Phil Bourne (Associate Director for Data Science of the U.S. National Institutes of Health), and more than 15 students and early career academic professionals leading successful initiatives.

While attendance at the main conference in Washington, DC is by application only, everyone is invited to participate freely in the interactive webcast, OpenCon Live. OpenCon is also looking for partners to host local satellite events that combine some of the programming from the main conference with local presentations to advance the conversation around opening up research and education in your community. To express your interest in hosting a satellite event and get more information, visit http://www.opencon2016.org/satellite.

The meeting in Washington, DC serves as the centerpiece of a much larger network to foster initiatives and collaboration among the next generation across OpenCon’s issue areas.  Become an active part of the community by joining our discussion list, tuning in for our monthly community calls and webcasts, or hosting an OpenCon satellite event in your community.

Apply now, and join the OpenCon community today!

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OpenCon is the conference for students and early career academic professionals interested in advancing Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data. OpenCon is hosted by SPARC and the Right to Research Coalition.

SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. SPARC empowers people to solve big problems and make new discoveries through the adoption of policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education. Learn more at sparcopen.org.

The Right to Research Coalition is an international alliance of graduate and undergraduate student organizations, which collectively represent nearly 7 million students in over 100 countries around the world, that advocate for and educate students about open methods of scholarly publishing.  The Right to Research Coalition is a project of SPARC.