OA in Lithuania
23 February 2010
The National Research Environment
How are Research Institutions (universities, research centers) organised nationally?
Lithuania has 30 State higher education establishments (15 university higher education establishments and 15 colleges) as well as 19 non-State higher education establishments (7 university higher education establishments and 12 colleges), 17 State research institutes, 18 university research institutes, and 8 State science institutions.
Major research funders
Who are the major funders of research nationally and do any have OA policies or mandates?
Administration & co-ordination: Ministry of Education and Science, Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education - Lithuanian ENIC/NARIC, Lithuanian University Rectors' Conference, Lithuanian College Directors' Conference, Science Council of Lithuania, National Examination Centre, Lithuanian State Science and Studies Foundation.
The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LAS) was founded on 16 January 1941. The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences is a budgetary institution that brings together the most distinguished Lithuanian and foreign scientists whose academic activities are related to Lithuania. The LAS is an independent body of experts and consultants on research and higher education, culture, social development, economy, environmental protection, health care, technology, etc. It also initiates complex interdisciplinary research.
Article 45 of the new Law on Science and Studies of the Republic of Lithuania (adopted on April 30, 2009 and took effect on May 12, 2009) requires the results of scientific activity to be made publicly available:
1. In order to guarantee the quality, transparency of the scientific research and to stimulate scientific advancement carried out utilising state budget funds, all the results of the scientific activity carried out in the state science and study institutions must be made public (via the internet and by other means) if this is in agreement with laws regulating intellectual property and protection of the commercial, state or work related secrets.
2. Results of scientific activity carried out at non-governmental institutions of science and studies using state budget funds must be made public (via the internet and by other means) if this is in agreement with laws regulating intellectual property and protection of the commercial or state secret.
This new law is a big step forward towards national open access policies. The new law introduces many radical changes into Lithuanian academic life and most of the changes should be implemented by 2011. The text of the law in Lithuanian is here.
Open Access and Repositories
Open Access projects and initiatives
Is there an awareness of Open Access within the research community nationally?
The movement for open access to scientific information in Lithuania was initiated by UNESCO, and started when Lithuanian universities began a pilot project to create an information system for electronic
theses and dissertations (ETD), which later developed into several larger projects at the Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT).
In 2003, the libraries of the Vilnius University Institute of Oncology and KaunasUniversity of Medicine became members of BioMedCentral and started to publish articles in BioMedCentral.
In 2006, the Minister of Education and Science issued a decree to establish a Lithuanian information system for electronic documents (eLABa).
Open Access repositories
What is the current status and distribution of OA repositories nationally?
Academic Library of Lithuania - Kaunas University of Technology is a key institution developing Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT). On the basis of Fedora, the Lithuanian Academic Electronic Library (eLABa) stores about ~13k objects in a Fedora repository, mainly ETD’s and science publications. The eLABa is a national repository based on OAI-PMH.
Kauno kolegija/Kaunas University of Applied Science
Open Access publishing
What is the current status of OA journals published nationally?
There are 13 open access journals listed in the DOAJ.
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers publishes 12 scientific journals (all of them are OA).
Open Access organisations and groups
The most active players in the field of Open Access are research libraries, and awareness raising events are organized in close collaboration with the Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network, the Ministry of Education and Science, the academic community, and the Lithuanian Academic Publishers Association.
(from the results of the questionnaire of CREST - Comité de la recherche scientifique et technique - whose missions is to identify research and development priorities for the EU.
eIFL-OA country coordinator is Dr. Gintare Tautkeviciene, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuanian Research Library Consortium (LMBA), gintare.tautkeviciene [@] ktu.lt
Kaunas University of Technology runs national level OA activities, supports a national repository, develops software and services, metadata and object structures, workflow control and teaching courses.
Contact details of the National Open Access Desk
Vilius Kučiukas, Kaunas University of Technology, Vilius.Kuciukas[@]internet.ktu.lt
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