Our association is a strong supporter for open science and open access, most recently demonstrated by our February 2020 position Open Access in Horizon Europe.
One of the key points of that position is “The retention of rights by researchers and universities is vital as it enables the full utilisation of research outcomes in diverse efforts across all areas of research, education and innovation.”
We therefore welcome today’s announcement by cOAlition S on a ‘Rights Retention Strategy’.
Marco Tullney (Technische Informationsbibliothek and co-lead on Open Access in Task Force Open Science) said “The rights belong to the author and they should remain there. This applies to all publications. In the case of non-open access publications, this is particularly important so that freely accessible versions of a publication can be created and distributed without problems - in accordance with the requirements of many funders and organisations and to achieve all advantages of open access. cOAlition S mandating and empowering researchers to use this route will further contribute to the transition towards open access.”
Pablo De Castro (University of Strathclyde and co-lead on Open Access in Task Force Open Science) added “This is a much-welcome and eagerly awaited statement by cOAlition S in support of a complementary Green Open Access route (aka 'repository route') to meet the requirements of Plan S. Also particularly inspiring is the adoption by cOAlition S of a similar rights retention policy as espoused by initiatives like the UK Scholarly Communications Licence, which has, unfortunately, only seen limited traction in the UK thus far.”
If you have any questions or comments, please contact our Advisor for Research and Innovation Mattias Björnmalm.