IARLA Supports cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy – IARLA

"IARLA, representing the research libraries of Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, and the United States, would like to express support for the new cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy. Under the strategy, participating funders will “require that a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) is applied to all Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) or Versions of Record (VoR) reporting original research, supported in whole or in part by their funding.

 The cOAlition S funders want to effect a critical shift in the licensing landscape that would ensure that authors are able to publish in their journal of choice while also making their work openly accessible. The strategy overrides the rights transfer requirements that many publishers require as a condition of publishing in their journals.

Research libraries are committed to universal access to scholarly outputs, and believe that COVID-19 has clearly highlighted the inherent value of immediate openness within the scientific process. This cOAlition S strategy strengthens the repository-based route and signals the continued importance of a robust network of open repositories as a viable means to provide access to global scholarship. ..."