Open Access was in the
spotlight on 17-18 May at the Green Light For Open Access Conference in
Amsterdam. The conference, an officially associated event with the Dutch
Presidency of the European Union, attracted some 150 experts, funders, research
institutions, publishers and policy makers from as far away as Australia.
All aspects of the Open Access landscape — from the
current situation to future developments — were discussed during the conference,
organised by the EC-funded project PASTEUR4OA. Ron Dekker, Director of
Institutes at the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and
Project Leader Open Access for the Dutch presidency of the Council of the
European Union, and Gerard Meijer, President of Radboud University, were among
the 26 speakers.
More than 400 Open Access policies
A key discussion point was the more than
400 Open Access policies in place across Europe. Delegates called for a focus
on the content of these policies: what should be their common denominators and
what can be learned from policies that are already established?
The topic of sustainability dominated Day
2 of the conference, with debate centering around what would be needed in terms
of infrastructure, advocacy and policies to ensure that Open Science leads
indeed to better and more sustainable research practices.
'I think there’s an incredible opportunity
to work together to deliver a more open scholarly infrastructure and we should
now seize that opportunity,' said Ben Johnson, Research Policy Adviser at
HEFCE.
Change required
Change from publishers was seen as a key
part of the change required in the coming years.
'I would like the publishing ecosystem to
change during the coming three years so that our researchers have new, high
quality Open Access publishing possibilities,' said Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen,
President of LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, and
Director of Library Network Services at the National Library of Finland.
One of the main achievements of the
Pasteur4OA project has been to gather advocacy materials, which can be used by
policy influencers across the European Research Area. The project has helped to
put Open Access and Open Science policies on the agenda of institutions and
policy makers across Europe.
Amsterdam Call for Action
During its EU Presidency, the Netherlands
is working towards a common EU approach to open science, including open access
to scientific publications and the best possible reuse of research data. In
April, it launched the Amsterdam Call for Action on Open Science.
Presentations and the programme from the
Green Light for Open Access conference can be consulted on the PASTEUR4OA website.
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