European University Association Open Access Recommendations

[Stevan Harnad <harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk>]

               [Apologies for Multiple Posting]

These recommendations by the EUA Working Group on Open Access 
were adopted unanimously by the Council of the European 
University Association on January 25 2008.

Many thanks to Professor Bernard Rentier, Rector, University of 
Liege and founder of EurOpenScholar, who has forwarded them to 
the American Scientist Open Access Forum for posting, with 
permission.

Below are the highlights of the recommendations, followed by the 
recommendations in full. The recommendation is that all European 
Universities should create institutional repositories and should 
mandate that all research publications must be deposited in them 
immediately upon publication (and made Open Access as soon as 
possible thereafter), as already mandated by RCUK, ERC, and NIH, 
and as recommended by EURAB. EUA also recommends that this 
self-archiving mandate should be extended to all research results 
arising from EU research programme/project funding.

HIGHLIGHTS:

A. Recommendations for University Leadership

      The basic approach... should be the creation of an institutional
      repository. These repositories should be established and managed
      according to current best practices (following recommendations
      and guidelines from DRIVER and similar projects) complying with the
      OAI-PMH protocol and allowing inter-operability and future networking
      for wider usage....

      University institutional policies should require that their
      researchers deposit (self-archive) their scientific publications
      in their institutional repository upon acceptance for publication.
      Permissible embargoes should apply only to the date of open access
      provision and not the date of deposit. Such policies would be in
      compliance with evolving policies of research funding agencies at
      the national and European level such as the ERC.

B. Recommendations for National Rectors' Conferences

      All National Rectors' Conferences should work with national research
      funding agencies and governments in their countries to implement
      the requirement for self-archiving of research publications
      in institutional repositories and other appropriate open access
      repositories according to best practice models of the ERC and existing
      national research funding agencies operating open access mandates...

C. Recommendations for the European University Association

      EUA should continue to contribute actively to the policy dialogue on
      Open Access at the European level with a view to a self-archiving
      mandate for all research results arising from EU research
      programme/project funding, hence in support of and building upon
      the ERC position and other international initiatives such as that
      of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

[SNIP]