Centring Our Values: Open Access for Aotearoa

"Key Recommendations Develop a National Strategy • National Library, CONZUL, and LIANZA should work together collaboratively to lead the development of a national level strategy. • Each University and Crown Research Institute should appoint a senior leader who can manage strategy development and local coordination, while liaising with the wider research community. • Māori scientists, scholars, and researchers need to be specifically invited into this conversation and supported to participate. National Library, the Universities, and Crown Research Institutes should work to create the conditions needed for self-determination and an equitable outcome. Fill the Knowledge Gaps New Zealand has critical gaps in its knowledge around open access, scholarly publishing, and open data. To create good policies and move forward with this transformation, more research and more funding to conduct that research is needed. There is room for multiple robust research projects to help understand the needs of researchers, their current behaviors, and what interventions make the most sense in New Zealand. Centre Care • Work with the Tertiary Education Union to reform the Performance Based Research Funding system to support well-being and disentangle from proprietary non-transparent metrics. Refocus on traditional peer review and innovative ways of measuring excellence. • Fund and support education for librarians, academics, and administrators to develop a deeper understanding of scholarly communication and open access issues. • Support public and university community focused education campaigns to engage a wide range of people in open access issues and invite them into the conversation. Strengthen Open Access Infrastructure Transforming our scholarly communications system requires building both policy and technological infrastructure. To create a robust system that will support the kind of transformative change needed, we should prioritise developing this infrastructure as part of a deep engagement process with researchers, scholars, and scientists. • New Zealand universities should coordinate with our Australian counterparts and work to develop a regional response to Plan S. • Open Access policies across New Zealand universities and Crown Research Institutes should be harmonised to strengthen our national negotiating position - but, this process should be based on robust engagement with academics across disciplines and with the needs of Māori and other marginalised scholars at the forefront. • Increase existing investment in university repositories to ensure that ‘green’ open access remains a robust path. • Expand the existing institutional repository system to Crown Research Institutes and others. • Develop a policy framework focused on carbon footprinting and monitoring to ensure that the system is as close to zero carbon as possible...."