"National strategy of open access" adopted in Slovenia

The Government of the Republic of Slovenia has adopted the National strategy of open access to scientific publications and research data in Slovenia 2015-2020 on 3 September 2015.

The Slovenian and English versions are available at the Ministry web page.

OpenAIRE and PASTEUR4OA , together with project partner EIFL, provided a joint submission to support the National strategy during the public consultation process.

The National Strategy provides a good-practice example of a fully aligned national policy on open access to scientific publications and national pilot programme Open access to research data with the Horizon 2020 (H2020) Open Access mandate and EC’s Open Research Data Pilot and the July 2012 Commission’s Recommendations on access to and preservation of scientific information:

• Chapters 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3 are translations into Slovenian language of the clause 29.2 of the H2020 Multi-beneficiary General Model Grant Agreement;

• Chapter 6.4. mentions APCs as eligible costs to be included in the research project budget in the framework of the nationally funded research;

• Chapter 6.5. includes support for researchers and monitoring compliance using the     OpenAIRE services.

• Chapter 7 describes a national pilot programme Open access to research data that     follows the approach of the H2020 Open Research Data Pilot.

We also welcome the open access publishing initiatives in the National strategy requiring that:

• Journals published by the publishers based in Slovenia, containing peer-reviewed articles and receiving national public funding for their activities in the period from the year 2015 have to be openly accessible.

• Publishers of scientific monographs based in Slovenia, which receive national public funding in the period from the year 2015 should strive to publish the monographs through business models that will enable open access to the full text of scientific monographs at the moment of publication under Creative Commons licenses (e.g. CC-BY).

We believe that open access policy alignment across European countries is key to:

• Enable researchers working in interdisciplinary areas or in international teams to comply with a   single open access policy rather than with multiple and often divergent policies;

• Facilitate interdisciplinary research and harmonisation of practices among different academic disciplines;

• Enable researcher-mobility across the European Research Area;

• Support the European Union harmonisation agenda and promote common practices and norms;

• Implement generic infrastructural services (e.g. OpenAIRE);

• Accelerate scientific research, technological progress and social well-being.