University of Latvia, Riga Technical University, Riga Stradins University, National Library of Latvia and the Association of Latvian Academic Libraries (LATABA) actively support Open Access and Open Science. The interest in the topic is growing in other scientific institutions and at the research policy level.
Overall, there are less positive aspects of rooting progress of Open Science in Latvia in comparison with other European countries. The main reasons are lack of funding for publishing scientific articles and data in open access; lack of a national open access policy and strategy; lack of knowledge of copyright issues; slow adoption and implementation of open science principles in the day-to-day and research practice; non-inclusion of open access activities in the scientific achievement assessment methodology; as well as there is need to improve infrastructure.
NOAD-Latvia is a support point in Latvia for the research community to be aware of OA and its benefits. NOAD-Latvia organizes activities and also gives consultations on topics related to OA, open science, OA policy, etc. As the University of Latvia is one of the first higher education institutions and scientific research institution in Latvia that has made its repository OA, the university provides all interested parties with consultations and information.
In 2019 the close collaboration is grown between NOAD-Latvia and State Education Development Agency (SEDA) and National Contact Points for Horizon 2020 in Latvia in giving strong support for the post-PhD students and new scientists on writing project proposals in Horizon 2020 program. The representative of NOAD-Latvia is joining the meetings of SEDA for scientists and post-PhD students with giving various presentations on Open Access and Open Science issues and Horizon 2020 Mandates.
Website
An important step to contribute to the OA and Open Science movements in Latvian society was the creation of National Open Access Desk web page, which is the central point for dissemination of information on OA, including news & events in Latvian.
Open e-Course
The E-course “Open Science/Atvērtā zinātne” has been created so that there could be a full understanding of the term "Open Science" as well as to promote it`s recognition amongst the members of the Latvian society of science. The principles of open science are gaining a stronger role in science`s development in the world. The course materials cover open science and its importance in research, OA, open data, open science policies, the management tools of OA information, repositories. It is possible to access the materials in various formats: presentations, videos, websites, written posts, statements and guidelines.
The course has been created thanks to the cooperation of the University of Latvia, the National Library of Latvia and Riga Technical University, in the project "Open Science - the 21st century`s benefits for researchers". The e-course contains materials from the FOSTER e-learning platform.
Main previous activities
In 2012 the Library of the University of Latvia organized a special week that promoted the repository of e-resources of the University to the academic staff of the university and all higher education institutions in Latvia.
In 2013 the Scientific Council of the University of Latvia held a session and a discussion "Copyright issues in Open Access: a burden or an opportunity?" which also took place in the Scientific café. A video devoted to the 5-year anniversary of OA in Latvia, and electronic booklets in which the main questions about copyright issues in OA where answered was produced.
In 2015 the main event was the conference "Open Science - the 21th-century benefits for researchers" which was held during the international OA week. The aim of the conference was to raise awareness about Open Science, its challenges and benefits and the recommendations of the European Commission in relation to research data management and digitalization, and sharing of experience. The event was co-funded by the European Commission’s research and innovation program (FP7) project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research).
In 2017 the national workshop “Open Research Data and Data Management” was held at the Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia. Dr. Marjan Grootveld and Elly Dijk from Data Archiving and Networked Services – DANS were presented topics about OA and Research Data Management, FAIR principles, storing and preserving data.
In 2018 May the workshop “Open license Creative Commons for open science, business and society” was held, which was given by Gwen Franck, EIFL-OA Programme Coordinator.
During “International Open Access Week 2018” the workshop “Open Science for Successful Research Grants” was held at the Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia. Research coordinator Ivo Grigorov at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU AQUA) presented topics about the good practice of winning research project competitions, incorporating the principles of open science in the project application, as well as addressing research data management issues.
In November 2019 there was a national workshop organized “Research infrastructures and services: Open Science Practice” with invited speakers Milica Ševkušić (Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA, Serbia); Lauris Cikovskis (Head of Riga Technical University (RTU) High-Performance Computing (HPC) Centre, Latvia); Alessia Bardi (Networked Multimedia Information Systems (NeMIS) lab, Institute of Information Science and Technologies at the Italian National Research Council (ISTI-CNR), Italy); Ivo Wijnbergen (EMEA Engagement ORCID, Netherlands) (more information (in Latvian) and presentations here), as well later in November invited speaker Tim Smith from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) gave a speech during “Research infrastructure – Zenodo: international, multidisciplinary, free” seminar (more information (in Latvian) here.
There were several essential events held in 2020 on the Open Access and Research Data Management topics.
Online event “Use of Creative Commons license for research and education” (November 2020) in collaboration with Masaryk University with the strong emphasis on the importance of creative materials circulation in the global context, as well as on theoretical aspect of CC licenses usage supplemented with the examples of science and education area.
There are several webinars conducted (January and February 2021) for the scientific and research institutions of Latvia based in Riga and regions: “Introduction to Open Science & Scientific Publishing and Open Access”, “Insights into Research Data Management”, “Horizon 2020 requirements and opportunities to meet in the Open Science context” with the presentation on OpenAIRE Services included.
Many presentations and video recordings from previous events are available on the activities website.
The University of Latvia has started to promote and support the OA movement in Latvia after taking part in the OpenAIRE project.
From 2009 to 2014 the OA team from the Library of the University of Latvia participated in the European Commission Seventh Framework Programme; OpenAIRE project (OA Infrastructure for Research in Europe) and OpenAIREplus (2nd Generation of OA Infrastructure for Research in Europe: 2012-2014). In 2015 it was continued with the OpenAIRE2020 (OA Infrastructure for Research in Europe 2020)), PASTEUR4OA (OA Policy Alignment Strategies for European Union Research), and FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research).
The participation of the University of Latvia in these projects has resulted in the establishment of the National Open Access Desk – Latvia which serves as the main information point for support on OA and broader Open Science in Latvia. During the participation in the projects, several important steps were taken for the development of the OA movement in Latvia. Three institutional repositories have been set up and researchers in Latvia were kept regularly informed about OA benefits, possibilities and activities. The University of Latvia annually celebrates international OA Week by organizing discussions, meetings, presentations, workshops on various OA initiatives and by spreading promotional materials to other academic institutions. The NOAD-Latvia regularly provides consultations and seminars on the OA and Open Science for the higher education and research institutions in all regions of Latvia.
On September 1, 2019, the EOSC Nordic project was launched to promote the implementation of the EOSC in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Latvia is represented in the project by Riga Technical University (more here).
In late 2019 the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia initiated the Open Science Latvia landscape research, which is done by the National Library of Latvia and Riga Technical University in collaboration with Riga Stradins University. The outcome of the research published in spring 2020 is available here, and the main recommendations here.
Latvia has not implemented a national Open Access/Open Science policy yet. However, the Ministry of Education and Science released the "Latvian European Research Area Roadmap 2016-2020", listing the promotion of Open Access as one of the priorities.
The research policy makers, administrators and the research communities have not yet reached a full level of awareness of OA and its benefits for researchers, institutions and for society in general; however, several actions and initiatives to implement principles of OA policies are taking place in Latvia. The increasing interest about the Open Access and Research Data Management issues is demonstrated by the scientific research community of Latvia.
In late 2019 the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia initiated the Open Science Latvia landscape research with one of the main aims to create a roadmap of the Open Science policy. The outcome of the research is publicly available here, and main recommendations here.
In late 2020 there were discussions started on the National Open Science Strategy, the National policy document is in progress. Please find more information about the political context of promoting the Open Science here.
OA policies are at an early stage in Latvia; In 2017 two universities, the University of Latvia and Riga Technical University adopted institutional policies. In both policies, it is recommended (not mandatory) that researchers provide OA to their publications and other research outputs.
E-resource repository of the University of Latvia is included in European and world’s repository networks and webpages (DRIVER, OpenDOAR, ROAR, Dart-Europe, OpenAIRE a.o).
The Riga Technical University repository is not fully open access, part of the content is accessible only by the university staff with passwords given by the university.
In 2016 the National Library of Latvia set up a new version of their repository Academia.
The discussion among the scientific institutions of Latvia is going on about setting up the network of national research data repositories.
Latvian Sociological Association (LSA) has developed the plan for establishing a national data service for the social sciences in Latvia by engaging in the CESSDA ERIC project CESSDA SaW. More information here.
The Riga Technical University repository collects and stores the scientific research data and other relevant information in all fields of knowledge of RTU, the repository is registered in re3data.org.
The awareness of OA is mainly within three universities: University of Latvia, Riga Technical University, Riga Stradins University and the academic library community focus on the OA.
Many researchers in Latvia publish their papers in OA journals and deposit their papers in subject repositories because they recognize that their studies will be accessible to a larger audience than by publishing in conventional journals. Scientists from Latvia upload their preprints to subject repositories such as PubMed Central, ArXiv, Cogprints etc. and publish in OA journals. These publications can be accessed through DOAJ, Open J-Gate, PLoS etc.
OA journals published in Latvia are run individually by scholarly institutions such as universities, scholarly societies, research centres and are accessible on journals websites. Several journals published by the University of Latvia and Riga Technical University are accessible in their repositories. There are currently 12 OA journals, published in Latvia, listed in DOAJ.
NOAD-Latvia is a support point in Latvia for the research community to be aware of OA and its benefits. NOAD-Latvia organizes activities and also gives consultations on topics related to OA, open science, OA policy, etc. As the University of Latvia is one of the first higher education institutions and scientific research institution in Latvia that has made its repository OA, the university provides all interested parties with consultations and information.
In 2019 the close collaboration is grown between NOAD-Latvia and State Education Development Agency (SEDA) and National Contact Points for Horizon 2020 in Latvia in giving strong support for the post-PhD students and new scientists on writing project proposals in Horizon 2020 program. The representative of NOAD-Latvia is joining the meetings of SEDA for scientists and post-PhD students with giving various presentations on Open Access and Open Science issues and Horizon 2020 Mandates.
Website
An important step to contribute to the OA and Open Science movements in Latvian society was the creation of National Open Access Desk web page, which is the central point for dissemination of information on OA, including news & events in Latvian.
Open e-Course
The E-course “Open Science/Atvērtā zinātne” has been created so that there could be a full understanding of the term "Open Science" as well as to promote it`s recognition amongst the members of the Latvian society of science. The principles of open science are gaining a stronger role in science`s development in the world. The course materials cover open science and its importance in research, OA, open data, open science policies, the management tools of OA information, repositories. It is possible to access the materials in various formats: presentations, videos, websites, written posts, statements and guidelines.
The course has been created thanks to the cooperation of the University of Latvia, the National Library of Latvia and Riga Technical University, in the project "Open Science - the 21st century`s benefits for researchers". The e-course contains materials from the FOSTER e-learning platform.
Main previous activities
In 2012 the Library of the University of Latvia organized a special week that promoted the repository of e-resources of the University to the academic staff of the university and all higher education institutions in Latvia.
In 2013 the Scientific Council of the University of Latvia held a session and a discussion "Copyright issues in Open Access: a burden or an opportunity?" which also took place in the Scientific café. A video devoted to the 5-year anniversary of OA in Latvia, and electronic booklets in which the main questions about copyright issues in OA where answered was produced.
In 2015 the main event was the conference "Open Science - the 21th-century benefits for researchers" which was held during the international OA week. The aim of the conference was to raise awareness about Open Science, its challenges and benefits and the recommendations of the European Commission in relation to research data management and digitalization, and sharing of experience. The event was co-funded by the European Commission’s research and innovation program (FP7) project FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research).
In 2017 the national workshop “Open Research Data and Data Management” was held at the Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia. Dr. Marjan Grootveld and Elly Dijk from Data Archiving and Networked Services – DANS were presented topics about OA and Research Data Management, FAIR principles, storing and preserving data.
In 2018 May the workshop “Open license Creative Commons for open science, business and society” was held, which was given by Gwen Franck, EIFL-OA Programme Coordinator.
During “International Open Access Week 2018” the workshop “Open Science for Successful Research Grants” was held at the Academic Center for Natural Sciences of the University of Latvia. Research coordinator Ivo Grigorov at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU AQUA) presented topics about the good practice of winning research project competitions, incorporating the principles of open science in the project application, as well as addressing research data management issues.
In November 2019 there was a national workshop organized “Research infrastructures and services: Open Science Practice” with invited speakers Milica Ševkušić (Institute of Technical Sciences of SASA, Serbia); Lauris Cikovskis (Head of Riga Technical University (RTU) High-Performance Computing (HPC) Centre, Latvia); Alessia Bardi (Networked Multimedia Information Systems (NeMIS) lab, Institute of Information Science and Technologies at the Italian National Research Council (ISTI-CNR), Italy); Ivo Wijnbergen (EMEA Engagement ORCID, Netherlands) (more information (in Latvian) and presentations here), as well later in November invited speaker Tim Smith from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) gave a speech during “Research infrastructure – Zenodo: international, multidisciplinary, free” seminar (more information (in Latvian) here.
There were several essential events held in 2020 on the Open Access and Research Data Management topics.
Online event “Use of Creative Commons license for research and education” (November 2020) in collaboration with Masaryk University with the strong emphasis on the importance of creative materials circulation in the global context, as well as on theoretical aspect of CC licenses usage supplemented with the examples of science and education area.
There are several webinars conducted (January and February 2021) for the scientific and research institutions of Latvia based in Riga and regions: “Introduction to Open Science & Scientific Publishing and Open Access”, “Insights into Research Data Management”, “Horizon 2020 requirements and opportunities to meet in the Open Science context” with the presentation on OpenAIRE Services included.
Many presentations and video recordings from previous events are available on the activities website.
Statistics
View Statistics in the country page of Open Science Observatory
Learn more about the newly adopted OS Strategy and recent developments in the country. OpenAIRE helps you keep up with everything that's important in Open Science. by Gita Rozenberga The OpenAIRE team has the pleasure of speaking to our NOADs in Latvia, Gita Rozenberga, Chief Librarian at the Library of the University of Latvia. Read her reflections on Open Science. How does the Uni...
Open Access (OA) Week 2018 events were organized in Latvia for its scientific society and for those who are interested in the field for the 9th time so far. Although the work with scientific society about the open processes is done on plan and on demand, the offical events of the Open Access week European-wide are the central to bring together everyone interested in the field to discuss and share ...
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News from a couple of months ago, but still interesting for those interested in citizen science and the link with open science: On May 20 and 21 the National Open Access Desk (NOADs) of Latvia participated in the HELSUS Knowledge Festival in Jelgava with an information panel about the citizen science movement. The HELSUS Knowledge Festival is devoted to human self-education in various fields...
The Library of the University of Latvia and National Open Access Desk - Latvia participated in Open Access Week 2016 by organising several activities: The workshop „Research Data Management and Open Science: Challenges and Opportunities for Latvia” as pre-event, on October 13. The workshop was given by Iryna Kuchma, EIFL-OA Programme Manager. Click HERE to view the recording of this workshop....
On January 28, the Latvian University Library received the Recognition award of the Latvian Open Technology Association (LATA) at the conference "Open technology and smart solutions" . The LATA conference is about sharing knowledge, and for discussing smart technologies that emphasise security, privacy, data storage and ICT management aspects. OpenAIRE wants to congratulate the...
OpenAIRE has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreements No. 777541 and 101017452 (see all).
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