The State of Open Access in Europe – Right to Research Coalition « JEPS Bulletin

“As regular readers of the JEPS bulletin will know, EFPSA is a staunch supporter of the open access movement. The JEPS Bulletin has led the way in the organisation’s support of this most important issue for modern science and has provided regular informative digests of the latest developments for the open access movement and what these mean for the psychology students of Europe (and beyond!).  In July, Ivan Flis, the Editor-in-Chief of JEPS, and I travelled to Budapest to take part in the first annual Right to Research Coalition General Assembly...  The Right to Research Coalition (R2RC) was established in 2009 by a group of students who wished to promote an open scholarly publishing system which would ensure access to scientific research for all students regardless of their economic situation or that of their institution. Working on the basis of a strong statement declaring that ‘Learning and inquiry are impeded when scholars lack access to fellow researchers’ work, and when students lack access to the work of scholars before them’ and that open access represents a viable alternative to the current scholarly publishing system, the coalition educates students about the benefits of open access and advocates for policies that strengthen the open access movement at local, national and international levels.  Each member of the coalition commits to this mission statement and the coalition now represents over 7 million students... EFPSA has been a member of the R2RC since 2011... By attending the GA we aimed to learn how EFPSA can help further the open access cause and how this could be beneficial to psychology students in particular. One focus of the meeting was building up the organization’s internal structure since its original structure only reflected its previous North American focus. The other focus was on how the members of the coalition can engage in advocacy and promotion of the open access movement, including planning events for Open Access Week ...the 22^nd of October to the 28^th of October, 2012 ... The organisations present included the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), the European Medical Students Association (EMSA), IFMSA-NL, the University of Colorado Student Government, the University of Nebraska, Medsin-UK, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), SPARC Europe, Lebanese Medical Students’ International Committee (LeMSIC), National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS), the American Medical Students Association (AMSA) and the Student PIRGs.  It was clear that much more work had been done by the American organisations. However, MEDSIN-UK has had great success in convincing the British Medical Association to endorse open access. It was clear the American representatives have an in depth experience and knowledge of the federal political system in the USA. This is something which is difficult for European organisations to relate to due to the relative lack of direct contact and interest in the EU for the average European student compared to the importance of the US federal government to American students. It’s clear that more effort is needed for European student organisations such as ours to learn how to make an impact on a Europe-wide political level...  In the following meetings we learned about the current state of Open Access in the USA and Europe and also how current members of the coalition have campaigned for open access. For example, the NAGPS president Matt Cooper, described action days of lobbying, advocacy training opportunities, office visits to politicians and faculty members and letter writing campaigns...”