The eighth Open Science Meeting, entitled Towards Resilient Society, was held from 15 to 17 May 2017 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Organised by the Joint Working Committee Indonesia-Netherlands, the Open Science Meetings (OSM) take place every other year, usually in Indonesia. The co-organisers of this symposium were the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), together with the host, Universitas Gadjah Mada.

Resilient society is a term that permeates many political agendas the world over. It has become shorthand for what we need to ensure an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable future for our planet. OSM 2017 put resilient society centre stage. Science will be our starting point, but civil society, the private sector and government policymakers are indispensable partners.

We heard how all these partners believe they can contribute to creating and supporting a resilient society. A number of sessions saw representatives from business, policymaking, civil society and science discussing opportunities and obstacles in the relationships between their respective spheres of influence.

The OSM 2017 programme featured scientific presentations, an innovation fair, public debates, workshops, keynote speeches, poster presentations, and science for policy sessions. Around the OSM plenary days, master classes on different themes were held.