LA Referencia - Public Policies for Scholarly Communication in Latin America

"This document, entitled "Scholarly Communication and Open Access. Actions for a Public Policy in Latin America", was written by LA Referencia for the regional authorities of this organization that attended the annual Global Research Council meeting.1 The document is published and disseminated to promote the discussion and construction of a joint vision that needs to be strengthened and updated in light of the challenges faced by Open Access in the region in the short and medium term.

Scientific communication and change of model; the situation in Latin America; scholarly communication system of the region; principles and actions and recommendations for repositories, consortiums and journals are the most important topics addressed in these pages.

The article also reviews the challenges faced in Latin America and reinforces the need to take actions so that totally or partially publicly financed results are Open Access, as well as the central role S&T organizations play to achieve this.

Based on the regional reality, general principles and actions are proposed for Open Access repositories, consortiums, and journals to have a more systemic point of view from a public policy approach. The document concludes with the need to discuss initiatives such as "Plan S", specifying the points of agreement and disagreement, given the regional context, regarding topics such as article processing charges (APC) or an assessment of the role of repositories...."