Universities Finland UNIFI considers it to be important that Open Access principles will be implemented quickly and therefore gives its full support to the FinELib consortium’s goals in the negotiations with international science publishers.
– It is absolutely necessary to introduce openness as an important theme in the negotiations. We can make science more efficient by making research based knowledge available to everybody. This will benefit the whole scientific community and decision makers as well as citizens, states UNIFI’s executive director Leena Wahlfors.
Promoting open publishing is in line with Open Science and Data Action Programme which was created under the guidance of UNIFI in Spring 2018. One of the key measures suggested in the Programme is producing a national open publication policy. As a part of this policy it is important to create a plan for the negotiations with international science publishers.
UNIFI states that open publishing should be advanced quickly. According to the European initiative Plan S, which was launched on 4th September 2018, publications resulting from research funded by public grants must be published in Open Access journals or on Open Access platforms by 2020.
– At the moment, Finland is known as an open science forerunner in Europe. We must keep this role in mind and support open publishing determinedly, Wahlfors says.
UNIFI gives its full support to FinELib’s negotiation goals. They include, among other things, that researchers must have a possibility to publish their articles on Open Access platforms without supplementary costs. Also, it is important that open publishing will not increase the total costs resulting from scientific publishing and from the use of scientific journals. FinELib’s negotiation principles and UNIFI’s statement can be read here.
– If the goals set for the negotiations cannot be reached, UNIFI will not recommend the renewal of agreements, Wahlfors states.
More information:
Leena Wahlfors
Executive Director
Universities Finland UNIFI
+358 50 522 9421