Open Access

EUA Working Group on Open Access

The recommendations from the EUA Working Group on Open Access were adopted by the EUA Council on 26^th March 2008 during the EUA Spring Conference held at the University of Barcelona, Spain.
Recommendations from the EUA Working Group on Open Access

EUA established the expert Working Group on Open Access in 2007 as the result of requests from its university membership that the EUA should seek to act as an independent European Stakeholder for universities in the growing policy debate on Open Access scientific publishing. The expert Working Group built upon the important momentum given to the Open Access debate by the findings and recommendations of the “Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publications Markets in Europe” (European Commission, January 2006) and supports strongly the “ERC Scientific Council Statement on Open Access” and the EURAB Report on “Scientific Publication: Policy on Open Access” (both published December 2006).

The Working Groups Terms of Reference were:

to provide a European platform of expert opinion to provide visibility to universities as stakeholders in the policy debate;
to raise awareness of the importance of the open access issue to the wider university community, both in terms of its impact upon of the research process and the conduct of scientific research, and financial implications for university libraries, journal provision etc.;
to develop a common strategy for the university sector on key selected issues through the preparation of position papers, drawing upon and pooling viewpoints and statements issued by national expert groups;
to review the range of broad issues on open access publishing and digital depositories (inter alia, author support, peer review, legal aspects/IPR, authenticity and data integrity, indexing, up-dating and continuity), and to establish priorities for policy action advice from the university perspective;
to provide expert input from the “university stakeholder perspective” to European Conferences and policy forums on access, dissemination and preservation of scientific information, organised by the European Commission, OECD and other relevant agencies.

Working Group Membership:

Chair:
Sijbolt Noorda, (EUA Council member, NL)

Belgium (Fl): Inge Van Nieuwerburgh, Ghent University
Czech Republic: Jan Stanek, Vice-Rector - Inst. of Chem. Technology Prague
Denmark: Wilbert van der Meer, Special Adviser, Danish Rectors’ Conference
Finland: Kalle Korhonen, Member of Finnish Open Access WG
France: Geneviève Gourdet, COUPERIN
Germany: Gerhard Schneider, Vice-Rector -University Freiburg
Greece: Claudine Xenidou-Dervou, Coordinator, HEAL-Link / Site Librarian, Physics & Informatics Depts. Aristotle University
Italy: Paola Gargiulo, Consorzio per le Applicazioni di Supercalcolo per Università e Ricerca (CASPUR)
Netherlands: Nol Verhagen, University of Amsterdam,
Norway: Rune Nilsen, Professor, University of Bergen
Portugal: Eloy Rodrigues, Head of Documentation Services, Minho University Institutional Repository.
Spain: Lluis Anglada I Ferrer, Director of Consorci de Biblioteques Universitaries de Catalunya
Sweden: Lars Björnshauge, Director of Libraries / Chief Librarian, University of Lund,
UK: Stephen Pinfield, Director of SHERPA, Deputy Chief Information Officer & Director of Research and Learning Resources, University of Nottingham,

Observer:

Françoise Vandooren, Université Library, Université Libre de Bruxelles

EUA:

John Smith, Deputy Secretary General
Gemma Jackson, Administrative Assistant, Research and Innovation Unit

Useful Documents

Read the Recommendations from the EUA Working Group on Open Access adopted by the EUA Council on the 26^thof March 2008 (University of Barcelona, Spain)

Read the Statement from the EUA Working Group on Open Access.

Read the Interview with Professor Sijbolt Noorda .