On 14 July 2025, In-Forest PIs Dr. habil. Susanne Koch and Prof. Nelius Boshoff, along with Mercator Fellow Dr. Rodrigo Costas contributed to the international workshop Inclusive Open Science – From Global Asymmetries to Pluriversal Design in Berlin with invited talks. The event was hosted by the Einstein Center Digital Future in Berlin. 

Organized by Prof. Dr. Michelle Christensen and Prof. Dr. Fernanda Beigel, the workshop aimed to critically examine the asymmetries that continue to shape global science systems and to explore strategies for designing open and inclusive science infrastructures. The programme comprised talks on research and policy initiatives addressing openness and inclusiveness in knowledge production and circulation, with speakers from institutions based in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States, and Ukraine. 

In his presentation, Bibliometric Methods for the Empirical Study of Inclusion in Multiscale Science, Nelius Boshoff discussed the possibilities and limitations of using bibliometric indicators to study inclusion in scientific knowledge production. Drawing on In-Forest analyses and recent scholarship, he illustrated how inclusion can be analysed through a focus on representation, participation, and access, and how these dimensions can be operationalized for bibliometric analyses at different scales. The talk underscored the importance of critically reflecting on data sources and analytical approaches in bibliometric studies on inclusion.    

Susanne Koch’s presentation, Social and Epistemic Inclusion in Multiscale Science: Opening Up Conceptual and Empirical Approaches, complemented this perspective by emphasizing the need for rethinking theory and methodology in research on inclusion. Building on insights from the In-Forest project, she proposed four conceptual and methodological shifts to open up the study of inclusion, including a move from a focus on international spaces to a multiscale perspective, and towards considering valuation and evaluation regimes as factors impacting scientific actors’ levels of inclusion at different scales.   

Rodrigo Costas, senior researcher at CWTS (Leiden University, The Netherlands) and Mercator Fellow in the In-Forest project, together with his collaborator Alysson Mazoni (University of Campinas, Brazil), joined the hybrid workshop online from Brazil. In their talk entitled The Multiversatory of Science: Fostering Diversity and Inclusion in Science by Means of Multi-Perspective and Participatory Science Observatories, they presented their on-going work and vision for more inclusive, contextualized and pluralistic scientometric analyses of knowledge created across diverse places and contexts. 

Together, the talks demonstrated how empirical research can inform the development of more inclusive conceptual and methodological approaches in science studies, and pointed to future directions for studying and fostering inclusion in science. 

The event was a collaboration between the Einstein Center Digital Future, the Berlin University Alliance Center for Open and Responsible Research (CORe), the Berlin Center for Global Engagement (BCGE / BUA), and the Research Center on the Circulation of Knowledge (CECIC, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo) Mendoza-Argentina. The contributions are planned to be published as workshop proceedings later this year.