8.3 Open Access Depends on Us Professors! Europe's Open Access Champions

‘Open Access depends on us professors!’

‘Stop discriminating against Open Access publications in research evaluation.’

‘I would like to see more intense competition on price and service.’

These are some of the statements from Europe’s rectors, professors, senior and junior researchers and administrators on what still needs to be done to achieve more Open Access.

Despite seeing significant international and national Open Access policy development across Europe, the library community is still having challenges in implementing that policy on various levels. It is, after all, the research community and senior administration who can vote with their feet against traditional publishing practices and support new forms, and who can show their trust in the quality of OA, and it is these communities who can impact and review how research is currently disseminated and evaluated. It is for this reason that SPARC Europe is highlighting the importance of the people in our research communities who are helping make Open Access happen.

SPARC Europe is doing this by bringing champions together in a new online showcase, Europe’s Open Access Champions. This features a range of academics and senior administrators or champions who are making the case for Open Access amongst their peers. They are generating more momentum for more access to Europe’s research results within their research communities. They tell us why and how – in their own words – on the Europe’s Open Access Champions site.

In the first instance, this presentation will provide an insight into the development of the champion showcase. It will then share a range of complementary but also very different views on the significance of OA to those in diverse research roles and from various research disciplines and countries. How does OA affect research careers? What are some of the current key challenges with OA for the research community, what suggestions do they have for how to tackle them within the community, and what still needs to be done to unlock more OA?

The presentation will then go on to share the lessons learnt by various libraries across Europe on how they have engaged champions in OA work and what makes a good OA champion from a librarian/OA advocate perspective. To conclude, this presentation seeks to inspire the European academic library community to partner with more champions to help implement OA from within the research communities for more rapid Open Access to Europe’s research results.

Vanessa Proudman is the owner of Proud2Know, a consultancy that supports the further development of European academic libraries with a specific focus on research support. Vanessa has twenty years of international experience working with numerous university libraries, foundations and research institutions from more than ten countries. She also headed information and IT at a UN-affiliated international research institution in Vienna for 10 years. She is SPARC Europe’s programme manager.