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The National Research Environment

There are seven higher education institutions in Iceland:
University of Iceland, University of Akureyri, Reykjavík University, Holar University College, Agricultural University of Iceland, Iceland Academy of the Arts and Bifröst University.
Among other large research institutions in Iceland are:
Landspitali University Hospital, Icelandic Heart Association, Marine Research Institution Reykjavik, DeCose Genetics and Matís ohf. Iceland.

Rannis - The Icelandic Centre for Research

The Icelandic Centre for Research (RANNIS) supports research, innovation, education and culture. RANNIS cooperates closely with the Icelandic Science and Technology Policy Council and provides professional assistance the preparation and implementation of science and technology policy in Iceland. RANNIS administers competitive funds and strategic research programmes, coordinates and promotes Icelandic participation in collaborative international projects in science and technology, monitors resources and performance in R&D and promotes public awareness of research and innovation in Iceland.

RANNIS reports to the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and operates according to the Act on Public Support for Scientific Research (No. 3/2003). Hallgrímur Jónasson is the General Director of RANNIS.

RANNIS has a permanent staff of 46 but also relies heavily on the involvement of external contacts, including scientists and technical experts who assist in the evaluation of grant proposals.

Rannis administers the main public competitive funds in the field of research and innovation in Iceland, including the Research Fund, the Technical Development Fund, the Graduate Students' Fund and the Innovation Fund for Students.

RAnnis coordinates and promotes Icelandic participation in European programmes such as Horizon 2020, Erasmus+ and Creative Europe. Rannis monitors resources and performanc in R&D and promotes public awareness of research and innovation, education and culture in Iceland. .

Open Access Journals

DOAJ indexes 7 journals from Iceland. Those are:

  • Netla : Online Journal on Pedagogy and Education .   Publisher:  University of Iceland

  • Íslenska Thjodfelagid .  Publisher: Icelandic Sociological Association.

  • Læknablaðið. The Icelandic Medical Journal .   Publisher: Icelandic Medical Association.

  • The Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy .  Publisher: University of Borås.

  • Nordicum-Mediterraneum .  Publisher:University of Akureyri.

  • Scripta Islandica.  Publisher: Isländska sällskapet.

  • Icelandic Review of Politics and Administration.  Publisher: University of Iceland

An Open Access mandate in Iceland

Open access is acknowledged and endorsed through government statements. There are four OA mandates in Iceland: the funder mandate from the Icelandic Center for Research, Rannís and mandates from Bifröst University, the University of Iceland and Reyjavik University.

In line with the Icelandic government’s Policy on the Information Society 2004-7, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture and The Science and Technology Policy Council have made statements that include support of Open Access.

The Science and Technology Council of Iceland signed the Berlin Declaration on the 27th of May 2010.
In March 2012  Bifröst University became the first higher educationinstitution in Iceland to adopt an Open Access mandate. The mandate, or policy depending on definitional preferences, was initiated by the faculty and is a declaration of the faculty member’s preference to publish in Open Access journals and their obligation to store research articles in the university’s open repository. The mandate is closely modelled on similar ones passed by for instance Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and by the Harvard Law School.

As of 2013 scientific publications based on projects, funded entirely or partially by the Icelandic Center for Research, Rannís, must be published in open access. This is to ensure that the public has access to results of publicly funded scientific projects in Iceland. This mandate extends to all peer-reviewed articles. Projects that have received grants from Rannís prior to January 2013 are not subject to the requirement of open access publishing, even though Rannís encourages all researchers to publish in open access. Rannís rules for OA are as follows: Rannís encourages scientists to publish their works in journals that are fully released for public access, that is provides immediate OA to all their articles. If a decision is made to publish research findings in journals that are not open access, the Rannís OA mandate may be met by publishing in an open searchable, digital repositories along with the publication in a traditional subscription journal. The final manuscript after peer review shall be returned to the repository immediately after the article has been accepted for publication. This applies even if the journal demands a waiting period prior to OA, then the article will be opened automatically when the waiting period expires. Rannís allows an embargo period for up to 12 months after publishing in the journal.

On February 6th 2014 the Open Access policy of the University of Iceland was accepted by the University Council and took effect on July 1st 2014. The University encourages the members of its academic staff to publish their scientific articles in open access journals, open archives, preprint databases or otherwise. This policy on open access does not include books or book chapters. Members of the academic staff shall provide the Division of Science and Innovation electronic access free of charge to the final version of their scientific papers no later than the date of publication.


Reykjavik University’s (RU) Policy on Open Access was approved by the Reykjavik University Executive Committee on 13 November 2014. Reykjavik University’s (RU) Policy on Open Access: Academic employees at RU shall seek to publish the results of their research and teaching activities in open access. RU encourages that scholarly articles, educational resources, and other material written by the University’s academic employees, alone or with others, and published in the name of the University (RU affiliated), be published in open access on the internet and thus made accessible to everyone free of charge and free of licencing restrictions. RU encourages its academic employees to retain copyright of their works, provide journals with a non-exclusive publishing licence, and mark versions published in open access with the public copyright licence Creative Commons. The aim is for all scholarly articles written by academic employees and published in the name of the University to be accessible in journals in open access or in open electronic repository libraries free of charge. RU does not participate in costs for publishing in open access.

Open Access Repositories

The first repository in Iceland, Hirslan, the Landspitali University Hospital repository, was started in 2006. Hirslan became OpenAire compliant 2014. Hirslan is the digital repository for research and scholarly publications of the Landspitali University Hospital faculty and staff. Hirslan also indexes all research articles in Icelandic health sciences journals and provides open access to these articles.

The second one, Skemman, the joint repository of University of Iceland, University of Akureyri, Bifröst University, Hólum University, Reykjavík University, Agricultural University of Iceland, National and University Library of Iceland and Iceland Academy of the Arts , started in 2008. Skemman hosts theses from the aformentioned universities.

The third repository in Iceland, opinvísindi.is, was opened on September 15th 2016. Opin Vísindi is the digital repository for the Agricultural University of Iceland, the Iceland Academy of the Arts, the National and University Library of Iceland, Reykjavik University, the University of Akureyri, Bifröst University, Hólar University College and the University of Iceland. It contains scholarly research by the universities’ academic staff as well as doctoral dissertations. The scientific publications are openly available (Open Access) in accordance to article 10 from the Act on public support for research / 2003 No 3. The aim of Opin Vísindi is to increase the usage, publicity, and impact of scholarly research produced at Icelandic universities and to further promote scientific research in Iceland.

National and University Library of Iceland

Overview: The largest library in Iceland, combining national (including legal deposit) and university collections to form an extensive research facility accessible through an OPAC (Gegnir) and manages the publicly accessible website.
Communication address: The National and University Library of Iceland
Arngrimsgata 3 - 107 Reykjavik, Iceland; e-mail: lbs(at)bok.hi.is

Landspitali Health Science Library

Health Sciences Library established it‘s Research Archive, Hirslan, in 2006. This site is an institutional repository for material produced by the scholars working at the Landspitali University Hospital.  All researchers at Landspitali  are requiredto deposit the research article in Hirslan but there is no mandate for OA.    Most of the material published in Icelandic are open access.  The library has made an agreement with the health science publishers in Iceland to deposit articles in PDF format and those are accessible in OA immediately after publication.

Communication address: Heilbrigðisvísindabókasafn Landspítala, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland 543-1000; e-mail: bokasafn(at)landspitali.is

Open Access projects and initiatives

The Landspitali Health Science Library and the university libraries in Iceland have supported the development of repositories and promoted Open Access for a number of years. There is an informal group from these libraries and universities that has worked on OA for few years on issues such as addressing OA policy issues, development of infrastructure/user services and information to researchers. This group has published articles about OA both in Icelandic journals and SciCom info.  It has organized and hosted three conferences.  This group has maintained the web www.openaccess.is hosted at The University Library of Iceland.

Iceland became a member of OPENAire+ EU project in 2011 and OpenAire2020 in 2015.

Useful links

OpenAccess.is , www.openaccess.is

Repositories:

Contributors Contact Details

Solveig Thorsteinsdottir
E-mail:
Phone:  + 354 5431454
Mobile Phone:  +354 8245380

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THE NATIONAL RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

Research in Greece is carried out primarily by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Research Centers (RC). HEIs are independent public law bodies comprising what is referred to in Greek as AEI (universities, polytechnic schools and the school of fine arts) and TEI (technological educational institutions, and the higher institute of pedagogical and educational training). Currently there are 22 AEIs and 14 TEIs with 268 and 168 departments respectively. Research is also carried out in research centres, supervised by the General Secretariat of Research and Technology (GSRT) of the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs. A number of specialized research centres are nonetheless supervised by other ministries. In addition to the above, research is carried out within other organisations like public and private hospitals, museums, private companies, etc. albeit to a smaller extent when compared to universities and research centers. The GSRT, the main public funder, supports the activities of research organisations and productive sectors of the economy through competitive funding.  

OPEN ACCESS POLICIES

Open Access policies are at a nascent stage in Greece. In 2016 only two AEIs, the Technical University of Crete and the International Hellenic University had adopted an Open Access policy, following support provided by EKT. Public funders have not yet adopted Open Access policies. Nonetheless, researchers funded under the “Diversity, inequalities and social inclusion” programme of the EEA financial mechanism (with GSRT being the programme operator) are expected to provide open access to their research outputs. The GSRT is planning to include in its future calls open access requirements similar to those of Horizon 2020.

EKT is supporting the development and adoption of Open Access policies in Greece through the elaboration of policy templates, training and awareness-raising activities targeting key stakeholder groups.

OPEN ACCESS REPOSITORIES

While institutional Open Access policies are at a nascent stage, the picture is different in relation to infrastructures. OpenDOAR currently lists 34 repositories: the majority of them are institutional ones (repositories of AEI, TEI and research centres). The list also includes some digital collections.

The increase in the number of institutional repositories over the previous period is linked to the availability of funding for their development. Despite the increase in most cases deposited items are limited to master and PhD theses, highlighting that further effort is required in bringing about cultural change.

OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING

Since 2007 EKT operates a nation-wide institutional ePublishing infrastructure for open access publications, aimed at supporting open access publishing for Greek scholarly institutions, such as universities, scholarly societies, and research centers. It collaborates with more than 25 Greek publishers and operates three platforms, for journals, proceedings and open access monographs with an emphasis on the SSH (http://epublishing.ekt.gr)



USEFUL LINKS AND RESOURCES

The Greek Portal on Open Access

EKT’s ePublishing infrastructure

The national open access archives harvester (openarchives.gr) with access to Greek repositories and journals

The National Archive of PhD Theses (more than 25000 in open access)

The National Portal of Open Access Textbooks, Kallipos



CONTRIBUTORS CONTACT DETAILS

Dr Marina Angelaki

National Documentation Centre (EKT)

Vas. Konstantinou 48

116 35 Athens

Greece

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The National Research Environment

In Italy research is performed mainly by higher education institutions (mainly public and few private universities, polytechnics, research centres) also  other types of public institutions, business enterprises, private not for profit organizations carry out research in different fields. The public funding comes mainly from central government and in smaller scale from  regional governaments. A relevant role is also played by EU framework programme funding.

In Italy  research is performed by:

  1. Public and private universities, polytechnics,  funded by  the Ministero dell’Istruzione Università e Ricerca (MIUR, Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) as part of their institutional mandate : currently there are 96 universities, 68 of which are public. Research is also carried out by interuniversity consortia and scientific and technological parks.
  2. Large research organizations and institutions funded by  MIUR:  CNR (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche/National Research Council), ENEA (Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile/Agency for the new technologies, and sustainable economic development), INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare/National Institute for Nucelar Physics), INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisca/National Institute of Astrophyiscs), INGV (Istituto Nazionale di Geologia e Vulconologia/National Institute of Geology and Vulcanology), ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana/Italian Space Agency).  There are also other research institutions funded by other ministries, e.g. ISS  (Istituto Nazionale della Sanità/National Health Institute )  funded by  Ministry of Health or the network of the public veterinary  institutes funded by the National Health System or other publicly funded  institutions (laboratories, hospitals, central government research units etc.).
  3. Business enterprises.
  4. Associations, institutes and foundations (public or private) not for profit.

Major Research Funders

The main public funder in Italy is the Ministero dell’Istruzione Università e Ricerca (MIUR, Ministry of Education, Universities and Research), but other ministries (e.g Ministry for the Economic Development, Health, etc) other central administration agencies and  regional governaments also play a role in funding research in specific areas (high-tech; nanotechnologies; environmental sciences and health, space research; etc.) and creating synergies among universities, research organizations and small-medium sized enterprises (as part of the EC Field Programs).

Public research funding can be further split into three categories:

  • national (originated by central government, e.g. ministries etc);
  • regional (funded by Regions mainly to promote collaboration among universities and small-medium size enterprises at regional level);
  • EC originated (Field Programs or co-financed projects with Italian institutions).

In 2013, the total investment in Research & Developement  accounted for 1.31% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Open Access, Repositories and Research data

The  research policy makers, administrators and the research communities have not reached yet a full level of awareness of Open Access and its benefits for researchers, institutions and for society; however several actions and initiatives to implement OA  policies are taking place in Italy. The awareness of research open data is still at early stage; in general the OA landscape is still quite fragmentary due to the lack of a national strategic vision on the needs and prospects of Italian research.

Open Access projects and initiatives

In 2006 the Conference of Italian Universities Rectors (CRUI) established a Working Group on OA as part of the CRUI Library Committee.  Since its founding the CRUI OA Working Group (OAWG) has performed several activities to support the implementation of OA in Italian universities. Most of the activities concentrated on the drafting and publication of Guidelines and Recommendations successively adopted by several universities. In 2007 CRUI OAWG published the Guidelines on depositing Doctoral Dissertations in open access repositories. (As of 2016 doctoral theses mandate has been implemented in 38 universities).

Later, CRUI OAWG released the following guidelines: Recommendations on OA and Research Evaluation in 2009; Guidelines for OA Journals in 2009; and Guidelines for Institutional Repositories in  2009, Guidelines on the creation and management of OA metadata in 2012. OAWG released  Guidelines on drafting  institutional policies  and mandates  for  publications and data sets in June 2013.

Since 2004  PLEIADI (Portal for Italian Electronic Scholarly Literature in Institutional Archives) was developed and implemented by the interuniversity supercomputing consortia CASPUR and CILEA (merged in CINECA in 2013)  to provide  a national platform to access digital contents deposited in the Italian Open Archives. Currently 2.898.969 items (August 2016) deposited in Italian academic and research institutional repositories or published in Italian OA journals are indexed by PLEIADI, they include  peer reviewed articles, doctoral dissertations, technical reports, working papers.

In 2013 a high majority of Italian universities (62)  decided to adopt IRIS (Institutional Research Information System) the CRIS developed CINECA fully integrated with D-Space and OpenAIRE and Cerif compliant. The integration of the IR with the CRIS together with the adoption of OA institutional policies is boosting the implementation and the population of OA repositories in Italy.

In 2016 AISA - Associazione Italiana per la promozione della Scienza Aperta- a non-profit organization for the advancement of open access to knowledge in Italy made a proposal to change the Italian copyright law " Proposta di modifica della legge sul diritto d'autore" in line with the changes made in Germany and more recently in France. The text of the proposal is now  avalaible on AISA website and will be brought shortly to the attention of the Italian parlamentarians.

Funder  Mandates

In October 2013:  a new law was approved by the Parliament on cultural assets. The Decree -Law“ Urgent  provisions for the protection, enhancement and promotion of cultural assets, activities and tourism (13G00135) (G.U No. 186 of 09.08.2013) released on August 9 2013 and converted in  law  on October 7 2013  (L. 112 /2013) states that  results of  research, funded at least 50 % with public funds and  published in scholarly journals (whose frequency is at least biannual) should  be open access.

According to this law all public research funders and administrators of public research funds are  required to take provisions to implement and promote OA according to the principles stated in the law.

In January 2014 the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research  mandated OA for publications and data sets arising from the funding programme for young scientists  (Bando SIR Scientific Independence for young scientists programme D. D. 23/01/14  n. 17). According to the mandate, data and texts must be deposited no later than the time of publication, and must become OA no later than six months from the date of publication in the natural science and no later than 12 months from the date of publication in the social sciences and humanities.

In 2015 the research funding programme Bandi PRIN 2015 financed by MIUR mandates open access to publications resulting from the funding programme in line with the law (L. 112 /2013).

Two private research funders, Telethon and Fondazione Cariplo adopted a funded OA mandate respectively in 2010 and 2012.

Institutional Mandates

In line with the EU recommendations to State members on access to and preservation of scientific information, with the new Italian Law on OA (L. 112 /2013) above mentioned and with the OA-CRUI guidelines on OA policy,  17 universities out of 96 adopted institutional OA mandates  and many others are in the  process of approving them (as of July 2016).

Large national funded research institutions or publicly funded medium or small research centres have not yet approved any policy with the exception of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (the main research institution on health science funded by the Public Health Ministry), all of them support OA in principle and committed themselves to take action in  the near future by signing the Position Statement on the Open Access to Research Results in March 2013. In particular INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare/National Institute for Nuclear Physics) is playing a leading role in the OA field with its participation in the SCOAP3 initiative.

Open Access repositories

Currently over 100 repositories are listed in OpenDOAR, although some of them are not fully operational, about 60 IR belong to the institutions which adopted  IRIS (Institutional Research Information System) the CRIS, fully integrated with D-Space, developed by  CINECA  are in the process of completing their compliance to OpenAIRE.

Open Access publishing

There are over 294 scholarly Open Access journals in Italy registered as peer-reviewed journals in DOAJ. The few ones which are not included in DOAJ do not fulfil all the necessary requirements to be strictly defined OA. The great majority of Italian OA journals are published by universities, academic departments, university presses or with the contribution of University funds.

Open Access organisations and groups

During 2006 – 2013 CRUI- Open Access Working Group consisted of about 60 OA representatives from Italian universities. The group was subdivided in 5 subgroups: OA international relations and context; OA journals; OA and Research Assessment; Doctoral Theses and OA; Teaching material and OA. The main objective was to provide guidelines and recommendations to universities in order to implement an OA culture in the academic community with a special focus on the OA green road strategy,on OA publishing, on OA and research assessment. Recently the CRUI-OAWG has gone through some reorganization process and now consists of 18 appointed OA experts from Italian universities for the term 2014-2016.

In March 2015 AISA- Associazione Italiana per la promozione della Scienza Aperta- was established as a non-profit organization to advance open access to knowledge.  Members are academic and research institutions  and single academic professors, researchers, OA officers, repository managers. The mission is to disseminate a culture of Open Science in Italy, to publish studies on the implementation of Open Science principles, to provide staff training programs to promote Open Science practices in research performing organizations (universities and research centres), to engage international cooperation through networking with legal entities involved in the promotion of Open Science, to promote participation in international research projects and grant applications linked to the association’s mission.  AISA wants to raise awareness among decision makers, and in particular Italian and European legislators, to further the promotion of Open Science in research assessment and intellectual property policies.

LINKS

Research Italy Portal - https://www.researchitaly.it/en

L. 112/2013  (Italian law) Urgent  provisions for the protection, enhancement and promotion of cultural assets, activities and tourism.  -   Section 4 is devoted to Open Access http://www.normattiva.it/uri-res/N2Ls?urn:nir:stato:decreto.legge:2013;91

MIUR- Ministry of Education, University and Research- Bandi Prin 2015 (Article 7 Open Access) http://attiministeriali.miur.it/anno-2015/novembre/dd-04112015.aspx 

CRUI – Open Access Working Group Documents – It collects all the recommendations, guidelines and statements on OA issues  released by the group http://www.crui.it/HomePage.aspx?ref=894

AISA- Associazione Italiana per la promozione della Scienza Aperta  http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/aisa/about-aisa/

AISA- Proposta per la modifica della legge sul diritto d'autore (2016) http://bfp.sp.unipi.it/aisa/attivita/diritto-di-ripubblicazione-in-ambito-scientifico/novella/

Position Statement on Open Acces to Research Outputs in Italy (2013) http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/Iservizi/Biblioteche/Position_statement_OA_en.pdf


PLEIADI - Portal for Italian Electronic Scholarly Literature in Institutional Archives - It is the  service provider to Italian OA scholarly and research content; it also collects and  provides access to  current information on OA in Italy and abroad http://www.openarchives.it/pleiadi

OA Wiki - The  main access point to find information about OA in Italian - http://wiki.openarchives.it/index.php/Pagina_principale

List of institutional OA mandates - http://wiki.openarchives.it/index.php/Regolamenti_e_Policy_sull%27Open_Access

OA Mailing list - This list covers OA issues in Italian. It is open to anybody interested in the topic. The list Archive is freely accessible. Registration is moderated. http://openarchives.it/mailman/listinfo/oa-italia

Facts and Figures about on Open Access in Italy (2015) http://wiki.openarchives.it/index.php/Dati_e_cifre_sull%27Open_Access_in_Italia_-_2015

Contributors Contact Details

Paola Gargiulo

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The National Research Environment

How are Research Institutions (universities, research centers) organised nationally?

Lithuania has 27 State higher education establishments (14 university higher education establishments and 13 colleges) as well as 20 non-State higher education establishments (9 university higher education establishments and 11 colleges), 14 State research institutes, 5 non-State research institutes.

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, Research Council of Lithuania, Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education, Lithuanian University Rectors' Conference, Lithuanian College Directors' Conference.

The Research Council of Lithuania functions and cooperates with the organizations responsible for the research policy, funding resources (public, private), evaluation procedures of projects, monitoring, etc. On Nov. 19, 2010 Research Council of Lithuania became a member of European Science Foundation in order to guarantee Lithuania’s representation of the highest level and to ensure the participation of Lithuanian scientists in the development of the European Research Area.

Article 45 of the new Law on Higher Education and Research 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 ensure the quality of research conducted with funds of the state budget, the transparency of the use of funds of the state budget, to enhance scientific progress, the results of all research works carried out in state higher education and research institutions must be announced publicly (in the Internet or any other way), to the extent this is in compliance with the legal acts regulating the protection of intellectual property, commercial or state and official secrets.
  2. The results of research conducted in non-state higher education and research institutions with funds of the state budget shall be announced publicly (in the Internet or any other way), to the extent this is in compliance with the legal acts regulating the protection of intellectual property, commercial or state secrets.

This new law is a big step forward towards national open access policies. The text of the law in Lithuanian is here.  

The Research Council of Lithuania (RCL), which is the main institution dealing with publicly funded research via competitive calls, has set the main policy principles in the Descriptions of the procedure for the funding of projects. Contract agreements with the RCL promote OA. E.g., in 2012 the articles dealing with publicly funded research results of the research projects carried out by researchers’ teams were adopted:

“81. Acting in accordance with Article 45 of the Law on Higher Eduction and Research  of the Republic of Lithuania (Official Gazette, 2009, No. 54-2140) the implementing institution shall publish the results of the research projects to the extent not contradicting the requirements of legal acts governing the protection of intellectual property, and commercial or State secrets.

82. The principal investigator and the implementing institution shall undertake, in the manner and under the terms set forth by the institution, to ensure a proper storage and the use of the data received in the course of the project implementation, and following three years from the end of the project implementation shall ensure an access to such data.

83. Three years after the end of each of the project the Council undertakes to ensure access to the final reports of each project funded thereby.

84. All copyrights and related rights set forth in Lithuanian legislation and international agreements belong to project researchers.

85. The Council does not claim any property rights in respect of the results of the intellectual activity carried our within the framework of the projects financed thereby.“

All the documents are in Lithuanian and can be found in the website of RCL: http://www.lmt.lt/lt/atviroji_prieiga.html

On 29 th of February, 2016 The Research Council of Lithuania adopted Guidelines for Open Access to Research Results (text in Lithuanian). The Guidelines include open access (OA) and open research data policy that are fully aligned with the Horizon 2020 (H2020) OA mandate and Open Research Data Pilot, and the July 2012 European Commission recommendations on access to and preservation of scientific information. The newly-adopted Guidelines are based on a strong OA tradition in Lithuania and on current good practice in Europe.

More information:http://www.pasteur4oa.eu/news/200#.VzGNxYSLSUk

 

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 started in 2003 when Lithuanian universities began a pilot project (financed by UNESCO) 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?

The Electronic Academic Library of Lithuania (eLABa) is operating as the national OA repository of the Ministry of Education and Science and all academic institutions of Lithuania. The fundamentals of the eLABa were laid in the course of the project Lithuanian Academic Libraries Network (LABT). The eLABa stores about 29 thousand of objects, consists of 6 collections: books, journal articles, conference proceedings, doctoral thesis and dissertations, working papers, empirical data. The eLABa is a national repository based on Fedora and OAI-PMH. Some institutions created repositories on the base of eLABa: 

Three institutions have established institutional repositories on their own:

Open Access publishing

What is the current status of OA journals published nationally?

There are 32 open access journals listed in the DOAJ.

Preservation of research data

Few repositories are under development:

  • National Open Access Research Data Archive MIDAS (project funded by EU Structural Funds, January 2012– June 2014). The purpose of the project is to establish the infrastructure of national research data archive that enables collection and storage of research and empirical data and ensures free, easy and convenient access to the data. Lead institution – Vilnius University, project partner – Vilnius University Hospital Santariškių Klinikos. Project participants: 13 institutions of research and higher education and medical institutions. Budget of the project is almost 15 M Lt (4.34 M€). MIDAS is an information system according to the legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania. Regulations of MIDAS information system are approved. The National Open Access Research Data Archive for Lithuania (MIDAS) provides up to 3 petabytes of capacity for research data.The primary responsibility for the administration of MIDAS lies with Vilnius University. According to the Guidelines, Principal Investigators are in charge of ensuring that their generated data will be openly accessible and linked to their respective publications. Moreover, they are required to submit data management plans with their applications for funding.
  •  Lithuanian Data ArchiveforHSSLIDA (http://www.lidata.eu). LiDA was established in 2006 by Policy and Public Administration Institute at Kaunas University of Technology in partnership with Vilnius University, Institute for Social Research, the Ministry of Education and Science. LiDA is a social science data service allowing searching, browsing, analysing, and downloading social science survey data. LiDA catalogues contain social survey data, historical statistics and data about Lithuanian political system. LiDA services also are available through catalogue of Lithuanian Virtual Library (LVB). All metadata are bilingually documented in English and Lithuanian. LiDA is a national member of ICPSR and conducts European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme in Lithuania. 

Open Access organisations and groups

The most active player in the dissemination of the OA initiatives in Lithuania is Lithuanian Research Libraries Consortium (http://www.lmba.lt), which is a member of EIFL. The OA ideas are supported by Lithuanian Research Council, Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science, Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Association of Lithuanian Serials and other organizations. Various events (seminars, round-table discussions and presentations delivered by the OA supporters at the national and international levels since 2005) have played an important role in advocating for the OA ideas in Lithuania.
An important role in the stakeholder dialogues is played by the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO which invited stakeholders to focus on this area of expertise. First meeting of various institutions linked to the OA to scientific information representatives was held in January 2013. The participants expressed a need to form a working group from various authorities and stakeholders that would summarize the situation in Lithuania and would provide suggestion for further development. This kind of group was formed by the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO in February 2013. The group is composed of the representatives of Lithuanian Research Libraries Association, the RCL, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, the Vilnius University library, the Lithuanian Society of Young Researchers, the Research and Higher Education Monitoring and Analysis Centre (MOSTA), the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (MITA). The aim of the group is to mobilise the interested parties, to analyse the situation of OA in the country and to provide possible solutions for the authorities. The group had two meetings in 2013 and shared information throughout the year. Based on the situation summarised by this group, the Lithuanian National Commission for UNESCO approached the Ministry of Education and Science suggesting to appoint a coordination institution for the OA issues. The RCL responded positively to the suggestion of the Ministry and took over this mission at the end of 2013.

eIFL-OA country coordinator is Dr. Gintare Tautkeviciene, Kaunas University of Technology,Lithuanian Research Library Consortium (LMBA),  

Contact details of the National Open Access Desk

Gintarė Tautkevičienė, Library Director
Kaunas University of Technology,

Ieva Cesevičiūtė, Head of Scholarly Communication Deparment 

Library of Kaunas University of Technology,

Rasa Dovidonytė, Senior Information Manager
Library of Kaunas University of Technology,  

  • Created on .

Written on .

The National Research Environment

Switzerland's academic research environment comprises:
Most of these institutions have jointly signed the Berlin Declaration in 2006 through their governing bodies:

In addition some Swiss research institutions have also signed the Berlin Declaration as single institution:

  • University of Zurich, 2004
  • Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), 2006
  • Paul Scherrer Institut, 2006
  • University of St. Gallen, 2006
  • University of Basel, 2007
  • University of Bern, 2007
  • University of Fribourg, 2008
  • Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS), 2010
  • Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 2015
  • University of Lucerne, 2015

Research Funding

The academic research institutions of Switzerland receive much of their financial support from the respective cantons and/or from the federal Swiss government.

Besides these sources, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) is Switzerland's leading provider of scientific research funding. With its federal mandate, it supports basic research in all disciplines, from philosophy and biology to the nanosciences and medicine.

The SNSF (also co-signatory of the Berlin Declaration in 2006) requires grantees to provide open access to research results obtained with the help of SNSF grants (Article 44 Funding Regulations). As of 1 October 2013, researchers receiving SNSF funding can cover the costs of publishing articles in pure OA journals via the project budget.
As of July 2014 the SNSF is expanding its OA policy to include monographs and editions. This corresponds to the rules applying to the publication of journal articles. Book publications co-financed by the SNSF must be made accessible in a disciplinary or institutional repository after an embargo period of no more than 24 months. The SNSF will contribute lump sums towards the production costs of a digital book publication. A maximum grant of CHF 10,000 can be requested for a basic digital OA publication. For a more elaborate digital OA publication (enriched e-book) a maximum of CHF 20,000 can be requested. These lump sums also cover editorial costs amounting to a maximum of CHF 3,000.
In doing so, the SNSF is matching the current funding policies of other European research funders  For further information see: SNSF Open Access Policy

Among other public research funders of Switzerland, the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW) supports the implementation of Open Access. The SAGW calls upon its member societies to obtain the necessary rights for their authors from the publishers. Several SAGW-sponsored journals are freely available.

Besides the SNSF, a few Swiss academic research institutions have installed Open Access mandates concerning scholarly publications by their researchers. Such institutional policies have been formulated by the ETH Zurich , University of Bern, the University of Geneva , the University of St. Gallen, the University of Zurich and can be viewed in the Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies (ROARMAP).   

Institutional Repositories for scientific publications

Repository Name Institution Website DRIVER OpenAIRE
Alexandria University of St. Gallen OA-Info yes no
Archive ouvert UNIGE University of Geneva OA-Info yes yes
BORIS University of Bern OA-Info yes no
LORY Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, University of Lucerne, University of Teacher Education Lucerne, ZHB Lucerne
 OA-Info yes yes
edoc University of Basel OA-Info yes no
ETH E-Collection ETH Zurich OA-Info yes yes
Infoscience EPFL Lausanne OA-Info yes no
MSF Field Research Médecins sans Frontières yes no
RERO DOC Reseau Romand OA-Info yes no
Serval University of Lausanne OA-Info yes yes
ZORA University of Zurich OA-Info yes yes
 

Open Access in Swiss Law

The University of Zurich commissioned an expert opinion on Open Access in Swiss law. The focus of interest is on questions of law related to what are known as repositories, i.e. internet servers that serve to make scientific publications available. In particular, the question arises of the extent to which publications that have already been published by scientific publishers are permitted to be deposited in repositories.

The expert opinion can be downloaded in English, French & German here. Answers to FAQs based on the expert opinion can be found here.

The results of the expert opinion are particulary useful to authors who have not concluded an agreement on copyright with their publisher upon publishing their work. In this case, according to Swiss Code of Obligations, Art. 382, Par. 3, authors are allowed by law to deposit journal articles, book chapters or conference papers on repositories three months after these works have been published in full. Provided the author has no other copyright agreement with the publisher, this paragraph applies also in the case of foreign publishers if the author’s place of residence and the repository are in Switzerland.

Open Access Journals in Switzerland

DOAJ lists more than 230 Open Access journals from Switzerland. The majority are published by MDPI AG (Basel) and Frontiers (Lausanne).
 

Further 352 retroactively digitized journals culturally based in Switzerland are freely accessible, usually with a moving wall, at retro.seals.ch. This project is implemented by the Consortium of the Swiss Academic Libraries. The projects e-codices and E-rara.ch focus on making digital reproductions with free access of old manuscripts and antique prints held by Swiss libraries. They are sponsored by the Swiss universities.

Research Data

In 2008 a national study, commissioned by the Swiss universities through their academic libraries, was published entitled: "Development of a model for a central long-term preservation of digital primary and secondary research data" (German/French). The results included a design with two models for a centrally managed long-term preservation of digital primary and secondary data for Swiss universities, the Swiss research centres and university libraries. Based on these models a survey was conducted in 2010 directly addressing heads of institutes of all Swiss universities. The survey clearly demonstrated the need for a better infrastructure for research data. But it also showed a great variety about the level these issues have to be adressed. While some prefer a national or institutional solution, others are more interested in an international subject specific solution. Due to this unclear situation further investigations towards a national approach for management and preservation of research data did not continue. Rather, some Swiss research institutions such as the ETH Zurich conducted individual projects regarding research data management and preservation.

The situation changed in 2014 with the development of the program SUC P-2 “Scientific information: access, processing and safeguarding”. It is the second of ten ongoing funding programs operated by the Swiss University Conference (SUC). The program’s objective is to combine and develop the universities’ currently separate efforts to provide and process scientific information. The aim is to establish a reorganized system by the year 2020 that will provide researchers, teachers and students with an extensive basic range of science-related digital content and the ideal tools for processing it.
These services should be stable, flexible, competitive, and available on a national level. Through targeted funding, the program initiates and controls the development of this range of services and ensures their sustainable operation. The Rectors’ Conference of the Swiss Universities (CRUS) has been tasked with carrying out the program.

Useful Links

 Contact for Switzerland

  • Christian Fuhrer & André Hoffmann, Main Library of the University of Zurich
  • eMail:
  • Website: http://www.oai.uzh.ch/

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