Hundreds of events will take place across the globe to highlight the power of Open Access to increase the impact of scientific and scholarly research during the sixth annual Open Access Week, October 21 - 27, 2013.
Open Access – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – is transforming the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. Providing open access to research has the power to directly enable scientific advancements and innovative job growth in a wide range of fields, from health care to energy to agriculture. Open Access Week, a community-driven, week-long global event, provides an opportunity for all stakeholders in the research community to share the successes they've had with Open Access, and to help continue building momentum towards greater adoption of Open Access policies and practices.
The diversity of locations where events are being held – in more than 140 countries on six continents – reflects the unprecedented support for the Open Access movement. This year the events showcase the growing trend of higher education institutions to actively maximize access to and sharing of the results of research that they support. Institutions from MIT to the University of Nairobi have adopted policies to make their research available to the public online and free of charge, and are using the week to celebrate the results of their efforts.
The week also highlights the proliferation of research funder policies supporting Open Access. On the national level, the recent landmark U.S. White House Open Access Directive and the bipartisan-supported Fair Access to Science and Technology Research (FASTR) Act, currently making its way through the U.S. Congress, will be at the center of discussion at many of the week's events. Proposed revisions to the controversial Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK) Open Access policy are a hot topic, as is the recently released proposed Canadian Tri-Agency Open Access Policy.
The scope of the week's activities range from the release of groundbreaking new research studies to awards for use of open content; and from competitions and hackathons to Wikipedia editing marathons. Below are just a few examples of the kinds of events and announcements happening during Open Access Week.
Open Access Week kicked off at the World Bank with a discussion of leading experts in business, government, and science, and the announcement of the Accelerating Science Award Program (ASAP) winners.
