Turning Open Access to Reality: The Case of Lithuania

Abstract:  Objective: This article aims to estimate the changes in the number of open access publications by Lithuanian authors at the national level, based on institutional publication data, as well as the impact of open access policies at the national and institutional levels on these changes. Methods: bibliometric analysis of scientific publications in the databases Scopus and Web of Science was carried out to assess the open access publications of Lithuanian authors and their changes over ten years. Results. Lithuanian author's publications from 2014 to 2023 by open access status increased by almost 33% (WoS) and 31% (Scopus), whereas the share of open access publications funded by the Research Council of Lithuania increased by 24% (WoS) and 37% (Scopus); the share of open access publications by authors from Kaunas University of Technology increased by 31% (WoS) and 26% (Scopus). When analyzing OA publications by open access mode, it is observed that the largest percentage of OA publications are Gold Access and Green Access publications. Conclusions. Lithuanian authors publish OA not only because of institutional and national funders policies but also by international funders, including EC, requirements on OA. When open access policies are guidelines, they have less impact than in those cases when they are mandatory. To measure authors' publications on the national scope, there is a need for metrics and tools to track all publications by Lithuanian authors.