EIFL will be celebrating International Open Access Week 2025 with libraries, researchers and students in our partner countries. Open Access Week is an annual, global event established by SPARC to raise awareness about open access and to call for open access to be the norm in scholarship and research.

The theme of Open Access Week 2025 is ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?' During the week, celebrations and events will reflect on how communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce, discussing who has access to education and research; how knowledge is created and shared; where it has come from, and whose voices are recognized and valued. 

The EIFL Open Access Programme is on the Open Access Week advisory committee. We encourage libraries across the EIFL network to take part in Open Access Week, and help them prepare for this exciting global event.

EIFL and EIFL partners have organized or will be taking part in several events - 

20 - 26 October

• EIFL’s partner library consortium in Moldova, REM Consortium, and the Librarians Association of the Republic of Moldova (ABRM) have organized a series of events to take place throughout OA Week 2025 at their member institutions. For details of events - Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova, 'Alecu Russo' State University of Balti and Information Society Development Institute (IDSI). 
• Busitema University Library in Uganda is hosting a series of events to take place from 20 - 25 October on the theme: ‘Our Campuses, Our Community, Our Knowledge: Opening Access for Ugandan Solutions’. Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager, will give a keynote address on the final day of celebrations, 25 October. Busitema University Library is a member of EIFL’s partner in Uganda, the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries (CUUL). 

20 October 

• Webinar -  Retaining author’s rights to enable open access to research outputs in Latvia, organized by  EIFL and the University of Latvia Library, on rights retention and secondary publication rights, two powerful tools to boost the achievement of open access to research. The aim of the webinar is to raise awareness of rights retention policies in Latvia and the issue of secondary publication rights found in European legislation. 
• Webinar -  Open access (OA) and open science: Guidelines for OA publishing and applying for research grants, organized by the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Library, the State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine - EIFL's partner in Ukraine and the Academy of Digital Development. Iryna Kuchma, Manager of the EIFL Open Access Programme, is a speaker. More information (in Ukrainian) is here. 
• Online training -  Maximizing Research Impact via Practising Openness, organized by Kaunas University of Technology Library in Lithuania. The trainer is Marjan Monshi (KTU Library, Research Information Services) and an active member of EIFL Open Science trainers community. The language of training is English.  Registration page. 

21 October 

• Webinar -  Open access and scholarly communication: Issues and practices, organized by the Consortium des bibliothèques d'enseignement supérieur et de recherche du Sénégal (COBESS) - EIFL’s partner in Senegal. The language of the webinar is French. Registration page. 

22 October 

• Webinar -  Best Practices for No-Fee Open Access Journals in Latin America, organized by  the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and the National Council of Rectors of Costa Rica (CONARE). Iryna Kuchma, EIFL Open Access Programme Manager, is one of the panelists. More information is here. 

22-23 October 

• ІV International Conference ‘Open Science and Innovation in Ukraine 2025’. This two-day conference is organized by The State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine - EIFL’s partner in Ukraine, in cooperation with TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library, with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Iryna Kuchma of EIFL is one of the speakers. More information about the conference is here. 

24 October 

• Webinar for the Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) research community (Lithuania): What You Need to Know About Open Access and Data Management. Speakers include Dr Gintarė Tautkevičienė, KTU Library Director and EIFL Open Access Country Coordinator in Lithuania, and Aistė Pranckutė and Marjan Monshi, KTU Library Research Information Services and active members of EIFL Open science trainers community).