The National Research Environment
The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic is the main body supporting research and development funded from public resources. There are public, private and state operated universities, research organisations, e.g. Slovak Academy of Science (SAS), research institutes and private companies. The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport realises the process of evaluation to perform R&D. The certificate for research organisation as result of evaluation process allows to use public resources for R&D.
Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) is the national information centre and specialised scientific library of the Slovak Republic focused on natural, technical, economic and social sciences. The SCSTI provides several information systems supporting R&D on national level funded by the ministry, i.e. Central Registry of Publication Activities, Central Registry of Theses and Dissertations, Central Information Portal for Research, Development and Innovation and Slovak Current Research Information System (SK CRIS).
Since 2013 SCSTI serves as the National point of reference for the policy of "Access and preservation of scientific information".
Major research funders
The major funder of all scientific projects in the country is the government. Funding process is realized through grant agencies: Slovak Research and Development Agency (SRDA), Scientific Grant Agency (VEGA), Cultural and Educational Grant Agency (KEGA) and the system of Incentives for Research and Development. Support of the EU for R&D process is realised through Operational Program Research and Development funded by ERDF. We could not forget bilateral and multirateral international cooperation funded by SRDA, The Central European Initiative etc.
Open Access and Repositories
The Slovak research community is aware of Open Access benefits but is still reluctant to provide Open Access to their publications. The major constraints are that Open Access depositing takes their time and effort. Only a small fraction of researchers deposit their research papers - this is a result of proactive advocacy and training provided by the library staff.
The main Open Access stakeholders in Slovakia are:
- Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (the National point of reference for the policy of "Access and preservation of scientific information", partner of OpenAIRE2020 project, LIBER member)
- University Library of Bratislava
- Slovak National Library (partner Europeana)
- Central Library of SAS
- The Slovak Library Association
- Slovak Librarians Association (IFLA member)
- The most important Slovak universities and their libraries
Since 2013 Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) serves as the national point of reference point of reference for the policy of "Access and preservation of scientific information". More info
Since 2007 SCSTI as provider of SK CRIS system, is member of EuroCRIS, not-for-profit organization, dedicated to the development of Research Information Systems and their interoperability. Since 2011 SCSTI has a delegate (Danica Zendulkova: danica.zendulkova[at]cvtisr.sk ) in euroCRIS board with responsibility of TG CRIS-IR (institutional repository). The main goal of this task group is to reach the interoperability of Research Information Systems with Repositories.
Open Access repositories
Actually there are no Open Access repositories in Slovakia. Some projects on setting up Open Access Repositories are ongoing.
The Central Registry of Theses and Dissertations provides fulltext access to some theses and dissertations but does not meet all requirements for institutional repository. The majority of universities provide their repositories as part of academic information system. These repositories do not have characteristics of institutional repository.
Open Access publishing
There are 42 open acces journals published in Slovakia. There are some open access journals available only from the web pages of the institutions, which do not have any long-term preservation strategies so they often disappear from institutional websites.
Actually the Slovak copyright (author’s) act does not allow full use of public licences. It is possible only to use the intelectual property and copyright works licensed under Creative Commons in the other countries. The intelectual property and copyright works covered by Slovak copyright (author’s) act could not be licensed under Creative Commons. "The Action Plan for Open Government in Slovak Republic, 2016 - 2019" is prepared and is waiting for approval of Government of the Slovak Republic. All tasks on Open Science and Research Data are aimed to solve problematic issues of open publishing at the national level.
Open Access organisations and groups
Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (the National point of reference for the policy of "Access and preservation of scientific information"): Jozef DZIVAK
Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic (Open Government Initiative, Government office of the Slovak Republic): Iveta FERCIKOVA
Contact details of the National OA Desk:
Ing. Jozef DZIVÁK (Science Library Section director at SCSTI) - jozef.dzivak@cvtisr.sk
Katarína SVITKOVA (first contact for OA at SCSTI) - katarina.svitkova@cvtisr.sk