Status: concluded
Period: January 2006 – January 2019
Funding: Limited (in kind + some travel costs)
Funding organization: Internal funding (OA policies) + (exp. PASTEUR4OA)
Person(s) in charge: Juan Carlos De Martin
Executive summary
Open Access (OA) is a movement promoting free access to academic scientific production. Several challenges – from technological, legal, economic and procedural standpoints – have to be faced to improve the adoption of OA by scientific institutions and this makes OA an especially interesting topic for the Nexa Center. Therefore, also in light of the appointment of Nexa co-director Juan Carlos De Martin as Italian National Point of Reference for OA in 2013, the Center has been increasingly involved in research and policy support in this field: supporting the adoption of OA at the Politecnico di Torino, helping to implement OA rules within a call for independent young research groups and participating in ad hoc dissemination activities on OA.
Background
OA recommendations were already produced by the Nexa Center within previous projects related with open content, e.g., as a result of the coordination of the Communia network and the subsequent involvement of the Center in the Communia Association).
Moreover, the Center has been traditionally committed into raising awareness on OA by its hosting institution. In 2011, the Center supported the design and launch of the Publications Open Repository of Politecnico di Torino (PORTO). Since 2013, Nexa co-director Juan Carlos De Martin is the Rector’s Delegate for the Library System of Politecnico di Torino (and formerly its President).
Objectives
During the year 2013/2014, the Center is concentrating its efforts to support the adoption of the OA model within the Politecnico di Torino and promote ad hoc dissemination activities fostering and raising awareness on OA. In order to increase its involvement in the topic, the Nexa Center is also participating in PASTEUR4OA, a EC-funded coordination action aiming at harmonizing OA policies in the EU.
Results
During the year 2013/2014 the Nexa Center continued to promote the adoption of OA within the Politecnico di Torino by contributing to the development of an introductory course on Open Access for scholarship students and organizing the seminar “Open access: priorities, obstacles, and opportunities”, held at the Libraries and Museum Area of the Politecnico and chaired by Harvard Professor Stuart Shieber. Also, the Nexa Center invited Professor Shieber to discuss the topic during an informal meeting with some members of the POLITO Academic Senate including, among others, Prof. Enrico Macii – Vice Rector for Research and Technology Transfer.
As part of its policy support activities, the Nexa Center contributed to the definition of the OA rules of the Scientific Independence of young Researchers program, promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research.
In addition, the Center further disseminated the topic of OA within the meetings “Open access e società globale della conoscenza” and “Conoscenza ad accesso aperto: opportunità e sfide”, in the occasion of the 2013 Turin International Book Fair.
Finally, Nexa co-director, Juan Carlos De Martin – National Point of Reference for the OA in Italy and head of a permanent Italian working group for Open Access Policies – chaired a series of internal meetings at PoliTO to increase internal awareness on Open Access (operational issues included).