Researchers and students in Egypt advocate for open access.
In 2002, EIFL was one of the original signatories for the Budapest Open Access Initiative, which coined the term Open Access'.
Open Access Week organizers and speakers in Estonia, a global event that calls for open access as the new norm in scholarship and research. Photo credit: Henri Kirs/Tartu Ülikool
THE CHALLENGE
Digital technology has revolutionized how we disseminate information, communicate and learn. The internet has provided the means for researchers to make their research results available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.
Open access (OA), the immediate, online, free and unrestricted availability of peer-reviewed research literature, is becoming the new normal. More and more scientists are introducing open science (OS) practices into their work. Open science is an approach that makes research processes and data open and transparent at all stages, from planning to dissemination of results, and which encourages collaboration among researchers.
Key stakeholders in this evolving scholarly communication environment - researchers, students, research managers and policy makers, librarians, journal editors and publishers - need to be made aware of how OA and OS can support their work.
To help spread awareness, the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA) organizes national and institutional OA and OS awareness raising and advocacy campaigns. EIFL also plays a leading role advocating for OA and OS internationally.
WHAT WE DO
- We organize national and international OA advocacy campaigns, reaching out to research communities and other stakeholders in developing and transition countries.
- We build networks of librarians, researchers, research managers, educators and students who are OA and OS advocates in their own academic communities.
- We encourage libraries to participate in Open Access Week, a global event that calls for OA as the new norm in scholarship and research.
- We write position and policy papers, make recommendations and respond to open consultations on OA and OS.
- We advocate for collaborative non-APC publishing models and for transparent and fair APCs (Article Processing Charges). To ensure that APCs are not a barrier for researchers from developing and transition economy countries to publish their articles, the EIFL Licensing Programme negotiates with publishers for waived or discounted APCs.
- We play a leading role in OA advocacy at the international level: EIFL is a founding member of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and of the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS). EIFL-OA Manager Iryna Kuchma serves on the boards of COAR, SCOSS and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). She is also a member of the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Council, and on the Open Access Week 2022 Advisory Board. UNESCO invited Kuchma to serve as an international expert on their Open Science Advisory Committee which developed the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. In addition, Iryna chairs and is a member of working groups of several OA initiatives (listed here).
GET INVOLVED
If you are from an EIFL partner country and are interested in open access or open science advocacy activities, please contact EIFL Open Access Programme Manager Iryna Kuchma at iryna.kuchma@eifl.net.
At our faculty researchers publish a number of publications. But we do not have access to them. Sometimes it is even hard to find out that they actually exist. The same thing happens with the scientific works written by students. Open access is not only about increasing citation, which refers to professors and researchers. Through our actions we show a variety of practical benefits of open access, both for students and researchers. Because open access is our common cause.
FACTS
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The Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP) blue ribbon panel of industry experts selected EIFL to be one of seven high-impact open access organizations, among public action advocates in 2013.
EIFL-OA IN ACTION
Armenia 
Kenya