[Apologies for Multiple Posting]
These recommendations by the EUA Working Group on Open Access were
adopted unanimously by the Council of the European University
Association on January 25 2008.
Many thanks to Professor Bernard Rentier, Rector, University of Liege
and founder of EurOpenScholar, who has forwarded them to the American
Scientist Open Access Forum for posting, with permission.
Below are the highlights of the recommendations, followed by the
recommendations in full. The recommendation is that all European
Universities should create institutional repositories and should mandate
that all research publications must be deposited in them immediately upon
publication (and made Open Access as soon as possible thereafter), as
already mandated by RCUK, ERC, and NIH, and as recommended by EURAB. EUA
also recommends that this self-archiving mandate should be extended to
all research results arising from EU research programme/project funding.
HIGHLIGHTS:
A. Recommendations for University Leadership
The basic approach... should be the creation of an institutional
repository. These repositories should be established and managed
according to current best practices (following recommendations
and guidelines from DRIVER and similar projects) complying with the
OAI-PMH protocol and allowing inter-operability and future networking
for wider usage....
University institutional policies should require that their
researchers deposit (self-archive) their scientific publications
in their institutional repository upon acceptance for publication.
Permissible embargoes should apply only to the date of open access
provision and not the date of deposit. Such policies would be in
compliance with evolving policies of research funding agencies at
the national and European level such as the ERC.
B. Recommendations for National Rectors' Conferences
All National Rectors' Conferences should work with national research
funding agencies and governments in their countries to implement
the requirement for self-archiving of research publications
in institutional repositories and other appropriate open access
repositories according to best practice models of the ERC and existing
national research funding agencies operating open access mandates...
C. Recommendations for the European University Association
EUA should continue to contribute actively to the policy dialogue on
Open Access at the European level with a view to a self-archiving
mandate for all research results arising from EU research
programme/project funding, hence in support of and building upon
the ERC position and other international initiatives such as that
of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendations from the European University Association Working Group
on Open Access
I. WG: Aims and Scope
In January 2007 EUA established a 'Working Group on Open Access' for a
one year period as a platform of expert opinion to provide both a voice
for, and visibility to European universities as stakeholders in the
policy debate. Its mission was dual-fold: to raise awareness of the
importance of 'open access' issues to the wider university community,
both in terms of its impact upon the research process and its financial
implications for university libraries, and to develop recommendations
for a common strategy for the university sector as key stakeholders in
policy development in the field. The decision to set up the Working
Group had reflected the general view that the interests of universities
were not being heard in the growing policy debate on the issue of the
wide implications of rapid development of digital ICT for publishing
which tended to be dominated by the commercial interests of the major
scientific publishing companies.
The Working Group membership drew upon the range of different university
perspectives on the concept of 'Open Access' from those of academic
researchers, librarians and university management. In the course of its
three meetings in 2007 the Working Group gathered expert opinion on open
access publishing business models, legal and copyright issues, technical
development of national digital repositories and their European
networking, and the policies being developed towards open access
publishing by funding agencies at the national level and the European
Commission.
Professor Sijbolt Noorda (Chair of the WG) and members contributed also
to several European Conferences held in 2007 including the major
conference on 'Scientific Publishing in the Digital Age' held jointly by
the European Commission DG Research and DG Information and Media in
Brussels in February 2007 in which the university sector were recognised
formally as a major 'stakeholder' in the open access policy debate.
In reaching its recommendations that are addressed to three audiences -
university leaders at the institutional level, National Rectors
Conferences and the EUA - the Working Group has borne in mind the full
spectrum of issues involved; these range from the clear opportunity
offered to widen access to the results of research, to the implications
of open access publishing for peer review and quality assurance in
academic research and the rapidly rising costs of scientific
publications for university libraries (through high subscription prices
for both electronic and printed journals, including 'bundling' marketing
strategies by publishers).
II. European and Global Context of the Recommendations
The WG recommendations seek to build upon the findings of the 'Study on
the Economic and Technical Evolution of Scientific Publications Markets
in Europe' (European Commission, DG Research, project report, January
2006), and public statements issued by the European Research Council
(ERC) and the European Research Advisory Board (EURAB) on Open Access as
well as the current practices of some funding agencies such as UK
Research Councils and the newly adopted policy of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States concerning open access
mandates for peer-reviewed publications arising from grants.
In the European context the most recent significant development has been
the ERC announcement on 17th December 2007 of its position on open
access, as follows:
"The ERC requires that all peer-reviewed publications from
ERC-funded research projects be deposited on publication
into an appropriate research repository where available, such
as PubMedCentral, ArXiv or an institutional repository, and
subsequently made Open Access within 6 months of publication."
WG recommendations seek also to provide support to European level
initiatives promoting institutional repositories, their networking and
wider accessibility through the future Confederation of European
Repositories being developed by the DRIVER project consortium (funded
under the European Commission 7th Research Framework Programme) and
other university-led initiatives such as EurOpenScholar and the UNICA
network.
III. Recommendations
The WG recommendations (below) are based upon the following core
premises: the university's role and responsibility as guardian of
research knowledge as a 'public good'; the results of publicly-funded
research should be publicly-available as soon as possible; and quality
assurance peer review processes are pre-conditions for scholarly
publishing and therefore are essential to be maintained in the digital
publishing mode.
It is important to emphasise that the scope of the WG recommendations
cover as a priority the need for the enhancement of open access to
peer-reviewed published research literature only, and not scientific
research data, teaching materials etc. Issues of access to research
data, its archiving and preservation need further attention from
universities, funding agencies and scientific professional bodies, and
are subject to several initiatives at the national and European level
which are not addressed here (e.g. the Alliance for Permanent Access and
European Digital Information Infrastructure).
A. Recommendations for University Leadership
1. Universities should develop institutional policies and
strategies that foster the availability of their quality controlled
research results for the broadest possible range of users, maximising
their visibility, accessibility and scientific impact.
2. The basic approach for achieving this should be the creation of
an institutional repository. These repositories should be established
and managed according to current best practices (following
recommendations and guidelines from DRIVER and similar projects)
complying with the OAI-PMH protocol and allowing inter-operability and
future networking for wider usage.
3. University institutional policies should require that their
researchers deposit (self-archive) their scientific publications in
their institutional repository upon acceptance for publication.
Permissible embargoes should apply only to the date of open access
provision and not the date of deposit. Such policies would be in
compliance with evolving policies of research funding agencies at the
national and European level such as the ERC.
4. University policies should include copyright in the
institutional intellectual property rights (IPR) management. It should
be the responsibility of the university to inform their faculty
researchers about IPR and copyright management in order to ensure the
wider sharing and re-use of the digital research content they have
produced. This should include a clear policy on ownership and management
of copyright covering scholarly publications and define procedures for
ensuring that the institution has the right to use the material produced
by its staff for further research, educational and instructional
purposes.
5. University institutional policies should explore also how own
resources could be found for author fees if 'author pays model' of open
access publishing prevails in the future in some scientific
fields/domains.
B. Recommendations for National Rectors' Conferences
1. All National Rectors' Conferences should work with national
research funding agencies and governments in their countries to
implement the requirement for self-archiving of research publications in
institutional repositories and other appropriate open access
repositories according to best practice models of the ERC and existing
national research funding agencies operating open access mandates.
National Rectors' Conferences should encourage government to work within
the framework of the Council of the European Union Conclusions on
Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access, Dissemination and
Preservation" adopted at the EU Competitiveness Council meeting on
22nd-23rd November 2007.
2. National Rectors' Conferences should attach high priority to
raising the awareness of university leadership to the importance of open
access policies in terms of enhanced visibility, access and impact of
their research results.
C. Recommendations for the European University Association
1. EUA should continue to contribute actively to the policy
dialogue on Open Access at the European level with a view to a
self-archiving mandate for all research results arising from EU research
programme/project funding, hence in support of and building upon the ERC
position and other international initiatives such as that of the US
National Institutes of Health (NIH).
2. EUA should continue to be visible and to rally expertise from
Europe's universities on Open Access issues to provide input to European
and International events advancing open access to scientific
publications, research data and their preservation.
