SPARC Europe — The Ghent Declaration

"The Ghent Declaration was submitted to the European Commission last January as a follow up to the launch of OpenAIRE on December 2nd. SPARC Europe, who led the panel discussion at OpenAIRE, very much welcomes the Declaration and is happy to make it publicly-available via its website as to encourage further debate on the important matters affecting greater than ever access to Europe's research publications....As reviewers of [the OpenAIRE] project, we have been impressed by progress made by the OpenAIRE Project after its first year in operation. However, current opportunities for increasing the circulation of knowledge extend well beyond the scope of this project, and we feel it imperative to bring these larger opportunities and issues to the Commission’s attention for possible action....The opportunity at hand, as we see it, is found in the emerging convergence among open elements in the academic production of knowledge today. Considerable developments have taken place in providing open access to research and scholarship, moves are afoot to provide for open data, to rely onopen source software, and to createopen educational resources, all of which are adding to the quality of learning, in its broadest sense. These four open initiatives – open access, open data, open source software, and open educational resources – are not only advancing developments in research and education, they are reducing costs in these areas, making better use of existing computing power, enriching learning experiences, and providing new opportunities for service industries in this knowledge-based economy.... we recommend two revisions to the EC’s open access policy (Special Clause 39, FP7 Grant Agreement): Firstly, the policy should require that a work deposited in a repository in compliance with the EC policy, should be placed under a non-exclusive license that allows full use of the work. For example, a Creative Commons Attribution license would explicitly enable re-use of the whole or part of the archived work, while ensuring credits for the authors. At the same time authors may continue to grant publishers the requisite rights over the published version....Secondly,if a publisher refuses open access deposit in an OpenAIRE repository, the Special Clause 39 should nonetheless require EC-funded authors, to submit the publication’s metadata to a repository so as to ensure that their work forms part of the EC record of contribution to research and scholarship. This policy will make apparent barriers to non-compliance with deposit in an OpenAIRE repository...."