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                          Workshop on National Policies for Open Access

6 December 2012, Athens (National Hellenic Research Foundation, Vas. Constantinou 48)

The National Documentation Centre of Greece (EKT) organizes the National Workshop on Open Access policies, which will take place on Thursday, December 6th, 2012 at the Auditorium “Leonidas Zervas” of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF) in Athens. The workshop is part of the project activities of MedOANet (Mediterranean Open Access Network, www.medoanet.eu). The project addresses the necessity for coordinated strategies and policies which promote Open Access to research and knowledge, with a focus on six Mediterranean countries: Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal.

Aiming at the coordination and promotion of open access policies at the national and Mediterranean level, MedOAnet organizes actions which enable the formation of successful policies for national institutions, research organizations and research funding bodies. The project is an initiative of the National Documentation Centre of Greece (EKT), which is the official body for the aggregation, documentation and dissemination of scientific and technological information in Greece. Apart from MedOAnet, the National Documentation Centre of Greece (EKT) leads a number of projects and initiatives (raising public awareness on open access issues, helping coordinate policies) and designs infrastructures according to open access principles (e.g. digital repositories, aggregation of open content in science, open publishing activities etc.).

The Workshop aims to present current European policies and highlight best international policy practices, present the current situation in Greece and facilitate the process of implementing policies in Greece. It is one of the six national Workshops that take place during autumn 2012 in Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey.

The Workshop is directed to research funding and research performing institutions, such as Ministries and other government bodies, private funders, universities, research centers, businesses and other stakeholders in the value chain of research, production, dissemination and use of research results. In particular it aims to attract key policy and administration officials of such organizations with the ability to affect policy change. Prominent guests in the field of research, policy and technology will contribute to the Workshop with lectures, presentations and roundtable discussion.

In the first part of the Workshop, the focus will be on current developments in the field of open access policies at the international level. Dr. Jean François Dechamp, of the Directorate General for Research in the European Commission will present open access policy initiatives of the European Commission such as the recently issued "Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information" and the role of Open Access in Horizon 2020. Live connected with Queensland University of Australia, we will attend Professor Tom Cochrane, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Technology, Information and Learning Support at the Queensland University of Technology, Australia will present the Univesity’s open access policy and its effect and an example of best practice internally. Subsequently, Dr AlmaSwan (Director of European Advocacy, SPARC Europe) will focus on the parameters that institutions should take into account when designing open access policies and present an account of the essential aspects in effective policy design.

The second part of the Workshop will focus on the Greek state of open access policies and practices. MedOANet carried out extensive surveys among research performing institutions, research funders and academic and research publishers in order to map the current situation of Open Access in terms of policies and practices in Greece. Dr Victoria Tsoukala (National Documentation Centre, Department of Strategic Planning and Development), coordinator of MedOAnet, will present the results of the surveys, valuable data which can significantly facilitate the design of national policy for open access to scientific results. Dr N. Houssos (National Documentation Centre) and N. Manola (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) will then present open access repositories infrastructures in Greece such as the National Archive of PhD Theses supported by EKT, the Institutional Repository of NHRF "Helios" and OpenAIRE Research Infrastructure.

The workshop is further envisioned as a venue for a fruitful discussion on the state of open access policies in Greece and as means to further the agenda of open access in the country. In the third part of the Workshop, Dr Evi Sachini (Head, National Documentation Centre, Department of Strategic Planning and Development) will co-ordinate the Round Table Discussion. Discussants include representatives of the major Greek research funders and policy-makers, such as the Ministry of Education and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Representatives of the Council of University Rectors, representatives of the council of Presidents of the Greek Research Centers, representatives of the Association of Greek Researchers, the representative of the European Commission on issues of access to scientific information, among others. It is envisioned that the discussion will contribute in highlighting the possible next steps towards coordinated national policies on open access to the research produced in Greece.