Student bottom-up mobilisation for open science in Poland (Right to Research Coalition)

"Poland is often being cited as ‘the green island’ unaffected by the world financial crisis, role model for countries in transition, a ‘European tiger’. Nonetheless, economic growth does not seem to trickle down sufficiently enough to reform and strengthen our academic sector. Renowned Polish universities are positioned fourth hundred in world university rankings while a conservative approach to research and teaching still prevails in academic circles. Older generations of scientists dominate the young, digital technology is not widely used either in research or teaching practices and most scholars tend to have a rigid idea of the copyright law. A group of final year students at the University of Warsaw did not want to give up without an impact and decided to conduct a revolution at their faculty. Mission impossible Starting at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, we founded the first student association to be devoted solely to the promotion of Open Access initiatives and research of academic practices at the University of Warsaw – we were pioneering in the country. Under the name ‘Inicjatywa Otwieracz’ (‘Opener Initiative’), we aimed at creating positive turmoil and demonstrating what benefits Open Access can bring to each individual scholar, to the Institute as a distinct research entity as well as to students, who can enrich their own learning and researching processes and increase their scientific impact even if they are not professional academics per se. Our objectives were challenging from the very start – bridging the gap between science and digital technology. Raising awareness of new methods of spreading research results is easier said than done, especially in a community which is not particularly used to considering the student voice as purveyor of valuable expertise. Open Access as a concept is hardly a recognisable brand, especially amongst students, so we ventured to challenge the existing ideas of conducting research and publishing results without much bottom-up support. Yet we quickly managed to produce a database of Polish Open Access journals dedicated to social sciences and a list of online scientific repositories, which we made available to the public. We received positive feedback from many scholars, associated not only with our Institute ... Our opus magnum turned out to be a major research project focused on new technologies and copyright law in the academic context. In order to be more persuasive and effectively overcome inevitable opposition to Open Access in our Institute, we looked for diagnosis of the most popular myths and anxieties related to technology and copyright law. We asked about beliefs and knowledge related to open publishing and digital technology, as well as about the practices of using new technological means in scientific and teaching processes ..."