As part of a webinar series on Open Research in Ireland, the National Open Research Forum (NORF) presented a webinar focused on Open Access to research publications on 4 May 2021. This presentation on Denmark's national Open Access strategy was delivered by Hanne-Louise Kirkegaard (Senior Advisor, Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science) and Karen Hytteballe Ibanez (Senior Officer, Technical University Denmark).

1. Denmark´s National Open
Access Strategy– the
importance of monitoring
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2. Program
1. Denmark´s National Open Access Strategy
– and the story behind the development of
the Open Access Indicator
2. The Open Access Indicator and lessons
learned in the process of developing and
maintaining it
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3. Denmark´s National Open
Access strategy – and the
story behind the development
of the Open Access Indicator
Hanne-Louise Kirkegaard
Senior Adviser, Danish Agency for
Higher Education and Science
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4. Green road towards Open Access
• Denmark´s National Strategy is primarily
focused on Green Open Access:
Parallel archiving of quality-assured research articles in institutional or
subject-specific digital repositories with online Open Access. Green Open
Access is a swift and cost-effective method for disseminating highly valued
and quality assured scientific articles.
• The golden model can be applied however,
when it does not lead to an increase of costs
for publishing research.
The journal as such is published as Open Access, and all its articles are
immediately accessible online free of charge. The costs – Article Processing
Charges – are typically covered by the researcher. For the time being, this
model often implies considerable extra costs for public authorities in relation to
the existing subscription-based publication model.
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5. Fundamental terms for the implementation of
Open Access
• The aggregate public expenditure for
scientific publication may not increase
significantly as a result of the
implementation of Open Access
• The implementation of Open Access may not
hinder researchers’ freedom of publication.
- Open Access in Denmark contains continued
quality assurance of research findings in the
form of journal peer review
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6. Denmark´s National Open Access Strategy (1)
• The first version of the strategy was launched
by the Minister of Higher Education and Science
in June 2014:
○ Target: 100% OA in 2022
• A revision of the strategy was underway in
2017-2018 in a close dialoque with the National
Steering Committe for Open Access:
○ the target was too ambitious (36% OA in 2018)
○ the division of labour was unclear – who were
responsible for what?
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7. Denmark´s National Open Access Strategy (2)
• A new (revised) version of the strategy was
launched by the Minister of Higher Education
and Science in June 2018:
○ Target postponed: 100% OA in 2025
○ Clear division og labour between
stakeholders, including the responsibility
of the Ministry to monitor the progress of
OA in Denmark
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8. Denmark´s National Open Access Strategy (2)
-The wish to monitor progress of
Open Access has been an
important element in both the first
and the new (revised) national
strategy!
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9. First OA strategi (2014)
• “The implementation of Open Access is
to be monitored on an ongoing basis to
ensure that all parties make a
maximum effort to develop and dis-
seminate free accessibility to Danish
research findings”
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10. New (revised) strategy of OA (2018)
- “Once a year, the Ministry of Higher Education and
Science will monitor the implementation of Open
Access via the Open Access Indicator (OAI) to support
that all parties are doing their utmost to develop and
expand free accessibility to Danish research results.
- With this target, the Ministry of Higher Education and
Science commits itself to operating and developing
the Open Access Indicator according to the needs of
the users, with the precondition that the necessary
financing is in place.”
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11. The implementation of the strategy in
collaboration with stakeholders (I)
• National Steering Committe on Open Access was appointed by
the Minister in 2014 (gave input to the formulation of the strategy)
• Mandate:To coordinate the implementation of the strategy
• Chairman: The Director General of the Danish Agency for Higher
Education and Science
• Members:
• The 8 Danish Universities
• Public and private research foundations
• Danish University Colleges
• Governmental research institutions
• Denmark´s Electronic Research Library (DEFF)
• Meetings: 11 in 2014-2018
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12. The implementation of the strategy in
collaboration with stakeholders (II)
• The National Steering Committe on Open Access
decided to set up a task force in 2014 to develop an
Open Acces Indicator
• Based on the task force report, the Ministry - in
coordination with the National Steering Committe -
decided to develop the Open Access Indicator in 2015.
• The Open Access Indicator came into operation in
2016 (operator: Technical University Denmark)
• The first officiel measurement, April 2016: 18% OA
• The latest officiel measurement, April 2021: 60% OA
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17% 18%
23%
36%
44%
52%
60%
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
Open Access 2015-2021

14. Some reflections on the
importance of monitoring
- Monitoring is an important tool in the
Ministry´s dialoque with the universities
about their OA performance
- Monitoring creates a healthy competion
between universities which has had a
positive impact on the level of OA in DK
- The Open Acces Indicator informs the
political level about the progress of the OA
strategy
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15. The Open Access Indicator
and lessons learned in the
process of developing and
maintaining it
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Karen Hytteballe Ibanez
Senior Adviser and Project Manager,
Technical University Denmark

16. • https://ufm.dk/en/research-and-innovation/cooperation-between-research-and-
innovation/open-access
• Strategic aims
• 100 % OA in 2025 - 12 months embargo OK
• Stable publication costs
• Strategic focus
• Journal articles and conference papers
• Green and Gold OA
• Strategic approach
• Secure OA rights
• Exploit rights fully
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We monitor the implementation of the Danish strategy
Open Access
Publication costs
Mission

17. • Collecting publication data from
university systems (CRIS/repository)
in the standard DK exchange format
• This means dealing with many
duplicate records that need to
be deduplicated and
harmonized
• Annual monitoring of university
publications with 3 classifications
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Overview of monitoring
Blocked OA
Realised OA
Unused OA rights

18. • National level results 2018 ff.
• If you click
 Details
You see also the Unused
and Blocked
 2015-2017
You see the performance
prior to the strategy revision
of 2018
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Overview of national results

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Overview of University results
Differences due to:
• Level of university backing/attention
• Resources in libraries
• Efficiency of OA workflows/processes

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How the system works
Documentation available at:
https://www.oaindikator.dk/en/data

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Improvements over the years
New website with more help/guides
Help the
Universities
Always
measure
accurately
Provide data for
analyses
White list of approved ext. repositories
Black list of journals w. embargo > 12
months
Test runs
OA types division
Embargo dates
Unpaywall hints

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Support & Collaboration with the Universities 1/2
Communication / dialogue

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Support & Collaboration with the Universities 2/2
https://www.oaindikator.dk/en/guides

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 Data sources change
 New data sources emerge
 Dedicate sufficient resources on tests
and analyses
 Know and understand the data you work with
 Engage in dialogue with the institutions
you are monitoring - especially the first
couple of years

25. Thank you for your attention!
-More information:
http://oaindikator.dk/en/
https://ufm.dk/en/research-and-
innovation/cooperation-between-research-and-
innovation/open-access?set_language=en&cl=en
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