The Open Science Agenda in Europe:
Policy convergence & diversity of approaches
Susan Reilly
Executive Director
SPARC More, March 6th
@skreilly

Overview
 Introduction to LIBER
Open Science in Europe: how did we get here?
Highlights
Open Science Cloud
Copyright reform
Open access

What is LIBER?
 A pan-European membership organisation
representing 420+ research libraries from
across Europe
Mission to create an information
infrastructure that enables research in LIBER
institutions to be world class

LIBER on Open Science

Our Advocacy Strategy
Open
Science

Council of Europe
European Commission
• H2020 Open Data
Pilot
• Digital Single Market
• Open Science Cloud
• Development of open
science agenda
• Importance of skills,
infra
Open Science in Europe
European Parliament
• Copyright legislation
• H2020 funding

Science in Transition: from Science 2.0
to Open Science
 EU consultation on Science 2.0 (July-
September 2014)
 498 responses and 27 position statements
 43% of respondents chose “Open Science” as
their preferred term out of 6 terms

Drivers for Open Science

Areas for Policy Intervention
 Open Access & Copyright
 Citizen Science
 Researchers’ Careers
 Peer Review & Research Evaluation
 New Metrics
 Other: Funding, Skills, Infra

Polarity of Positions

Convergence: The Digital Single
Market Strategy (May 2015)
 Online access for consumers and business across
Europe
 Fit for purpose copyright framework
 Maximising the growth potential of the digital economy
 Build a data economy
 Interoperability and standardisation
 Inclusive e-society
 Digital skills

Convergence: Open Science Cloud
(OSC)
 “a trusted environment for hosting and
processing research data to support EU
science in its global leading role”
 H2020 Open Data Pilot
 Proliferation of Infrastructure
 Need for Interoperability
 Drive for Knowledge transfer

LIBER on the OSC
 “Open & Community Driven”
http://libereurope.eu/blog/2015/11/04/an-open-and-community-driven-
open-science-cloud
 Not sufficient to provide infrastructure
 Skills and training
 Local support
 Incentivise Open Science
 Commons

Convergence: Copyright
 Recognition that copyright needs to be modernised to
support Open Science and the Digital Single Market
 European Commission to publish proposals for
copyright reform in June 2016
 TDM
 Cross Border

Copyright & TDM
• TDM potentially worth 5.3 billion euro a year to European
research budget (2%)
• Knock-on effect would be a minimum of 32.5 billion euro
increase in GDP
• Increased capacity of digital technology
• Licences don’t scale and infringe
academic freedom

Elsevier TDM Policy
• Access through API only
• Text only- no images, tables
• Research must register details
• Click-through licence
• Terms can change any time
• Reproducibility of results

1. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY WAS NOT
DESIGNED TO REGULATE THE FREE
FLOW OF FACTS, DATA AND IDEAS,
BUT HAS AS A KEY OBJECTIVE THE
PROMOTION OF RESEARCH ACTIVITY

7. Where research funders or other bodies require, and
where authors wish, research outputs to be made available
under specific licences, these should typically be CC-BY for
publications and CC0 for research data.
8. Every university, research organisation, research funder
and commercial business should ensure that their policies
advocate content mining as a research methodology which
has the potential to transform the way research is
performed. The growth of open access and open data has
been, and will continue to be, a key enabler of content
mining.

Divergence: Open Access
 Communication From The Commission To The
European Parliament, The Council, The European
Economic And Social Committee And The Committee
Of The Regions (2012)
 Policies for open access to scientific articles and data in place in all
members states by 2014
 60% of publically funded scientific articles available open access by
2016
 Various approaches in place
 Legislation to enable green OA e.g. Spain, Italy, Germany
 Funder/Government mandates e.g.UK & NL
 Extra funding for gold
 Off-setting agreements

Open Access
 OpenAire Open Access Publishing Pilot
 New focus on “fair open access”
 Concerns over cost of open access: “Christmas is
over!”

Research Data

Thank You!
Any questions?
@skreilly
www.libereurope.eu