52 research managers, researchers and librarians from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia participated in the Open Access: Maximising Research Impact workshop in the New Bulgarian University Library, Sofia, organised by the Bulgarian Information Consortium, New Bulgarian University Library and eIFL.net, and supported by the Higher Education Support Program (HESP) of the Open Society Institute. The participants discussed the benefits of open access for researchers, research managers and policy makers; case studies from TARA: Trinity’s Access to Research Archive, Ireland, New Bulgarian University Scholar Electronic Repository and ePrints.FRI, Slovenia, and value-added services that can be build on top of the repositories – the Serbian Citation Index - SCIndeks developed for publications in Serbian journals (all of them are open access journals due to the mandate from the Ministry of Science and Education). The second day of the workshop was devoted to discussing funders open access policies, university open access policies, repository policies, copyright management and open content licences for sharing materials from the repositories and checklists for setting up institutional repositories and increasing usage. You can download all workshop presentations here: http://www.eifl.net/cps/sections/services/eifl-oa/training/2009-sofia. The HESP Program will be supporting eIFL.net is organising more seminars for the HESP supported institutions in Poland, Latvia and Russia.

Background information – Open Access projects in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia

Bulgaria: – 14 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by New Bulgarian University Library, Bourgas University, Technical College; Hikari Ltd, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Trakia University, National Bank for Industrial Microorganisms and Cell Cultures Bulgaria and Bulgarian Geological Society. - 3 institutional repositories: New Bulgarian University Scholar Electronic Repository, http://eprints.nbu.bg/ Research at Sofia University http://research.it.fmi.uni-sofia.bg:8880/dspace/ and University of Rus. http://dspace.ru.acad.bg American University in Bulgaria is working on creating institutional repository.

Macedonia: 4 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by Versita, Society of the Chemists and Technologists of Macedonia, University Ss Kiril and Metodij and Institute for Sociological and Political Research.

Serbia: - Open Access journals from Serbia at the National Library http://nainfo.nb.rs/doiserboai/oai2.aspx – 24 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by the The Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics, University of Nis; University of Belgrade and Academic Mind; Astronomical Observatory, Department of Astronomy; Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts; Association of the Chemical Engineers; Electrochemical Science Group; Serbian Chemical Society; Mathematical Society of Serbia; VINČA Institute of Nuclear Sciences; Drustvo Psihologa Srbije; University of Belgrade, Sports Academy, Serbian medical association, Zajecar.

Slovenia: – 20 OA journals registered in DOAJ published by Biotechnical Faculty, Veterinary Faculty, University of Ljubljana; Slovenian Chemical Society, Geografski inštitut Antona Melika ZRC SAZU, Slovene Anthropological Society, Morana RTD d.o.o., Association of Surveyors of Slovenia, Versita, Slovenian Museum of Natural History and Mississippi College, Slovenian Society for Stereology and Quantitative Image Analysis, The Slovene Society Informatika, University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Institute of Metals and Technology with associated publishers, International Association for Political Science Students (IAPSS), Slovensko društvo učiteljev tujega strokovnega jezika (SDUTSJ) and Slovenian Forestry Institute. - department repository ePrints.FRI at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science (FRI), Univerza v Ljubljani. http://eprints.fri.uni-lj.si The collegium of the rector commissioned a draft model for the establishment of the institutional repository for research publications and higher education works (diploma, master and PhD theses) for Ljubljana University.