New project for SPARC Europe to reform rights retention and open licensing policies in Europe - SPARC Europe

"SPARC Europe has been selected to deliver the first project sponsored under the Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21) programme. KR21 seeks to strengthen access to knowledge in particular through libraries and archives. It is focused on bringing about changes in legislation and practice across Europe that will strengthen rights to knowledge.

This is aligned to the SPARC Europe strategy and speaks to four of our strategic goals: 

• Strengthen Open Access, Open Scholarship / Open Science and Open Education policy in Europe and align where possible;
• Advocate for open in research and education;
• Strive to enable more equity in Open so that all those who wish to publish and share research and education resources openly are better enabled to do so; and 
• Promote diversity in publishing Open research and education.

SPARC Europe will lead research to develop a stronger understanding of rights retention and open licensing policies in Europe, with an ambition to reform the way institutions and authors manage their publishing rights to enable Open Access and access to knowledge for all. A key goal is to simplify the rights retention procedures, encourage the adoption of open licences, and better empower authors so that they and their fellow researchers, teachers and students can further benefit from the research they share. ..."