Timeline of the open-access movement

The following is a timeline of the international movement for open access to scholarly communication.

1940s-1990s

 * 1942
 * American sociologist Robert King Merton declares: "Each researcher must contribute to the 'common pot' and give up intellectual property rights to allow knowledge to move forward."
 * 1971
 * "World's first online digital library is launched, Project Gutenberg."
 * 1987
 * Syracuse University in the US issues one of the world's first open access journals, New Horizons in Adult Education.
 * 1991
 * 14 August: ArXiv repository of physics research papers established at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US.
 * 1994
 * 27 June: Stevan Harnad posts a "Subversive Proposal" for authors to archive their articles for free for everyone online.
 * July 1994. Electronic Green Journal was launched by the University of Idaho Library and today is published by the University of California eScholarship. As an early free online peer-reviewed journal.
 * 1998
 * Brazil-based SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) launched.
 * Public Knowledge Project founded in Canada.
 * Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition founded in North America.
 * 1999
 * October: Open Archives Initiative on interoperability standards holds its first meeting, in New Mexico, US.

2000s

 * 2000
 * BioMed Central publisher established.
 * 2001
 * 15 January: Creative Commons founded in the United States.
 * Public Library of Science publisher active.
 * Open Journal Systems free software published.
 * SPARC Europe established to promote open access in Europe.
 * 2002
 * 14 February: Budapest Open Access Initiative statement issued.
 * 28 June: US-based OAIster catalog begins.
 * 2003
 * 11 April: Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing formed.
 * 22 October: Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities published.
 * 25 December: Institutional Self-Archiving Policy Registry launched (later called ROARMAP).
 * Redalyc (Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y El Caribe, España y Portugal) established in Mexico.
 * 2004
 * UK Digital Curation Centre founded.
 * Bielefeld Academic Search Engine launched by Bielefeld University, Germany.
 * Publisher Springer begins "hybrid option 'Open Choice' for their full portfolio of over 1,000 subscription journals."
 * 30 January: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issues "Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding."
 * 2005
 * Directory of Open Access Repositories begins publication.
 * 2007
 * European Research Council issues "its first Scientific Council Guidelines for open access."
 * 2008
 * Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship written.
 * 7 April: United States National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy effected.
 * July: Aaron Swartz releases the "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto", to send "a strong message against the privatization of knowledge".
 * 2009
 * 12 January: European Commission-funded OpenAIRE project begins, supporting implementation of open access in Europe.
 * Confederation of Open Access Repositories founded.

2010s

 * 2010
 * "Beall's list" of predatory open access publishers begins circulating.
 * 2011
 * 20 January: #icanhazPDF begins on Twitter.
 * 5 September: Sci-Hub launched by Alexandra Elbakyan.
 * 16 December: United States Research Works Act bill introduced.
 * UK-based CORE (COnnecting REpositories) aggregation service founded.
 * 2012
 * Knowledge Unlatched established.
 * Pasteur4OA (Open Access Policy Alignment Strategies for European Union Research) begins.
 * The Cost of Knowledge protest begins against high prices charged by large publisher Elsevier.
 * 22 October: Brussels Declaration signed, on open access to Belgian publicly funded research.
 * 2013
 * PeerJ megajournal begins publication.
 * Registry of Research Data Repositories begins operating.
 * 4 October: "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" published in Science.
 * 2014
 * FOSTER Project (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) begins.
 * 2016
 * 7 March: Open Data Button (browser extension) launched.
 * 2017
 * April: UnpayWall Button (Browser extension) launched (90 million articles are indexed)
 * 10 October: Jussieu Call statement issued
 * Plug-in search tool Canary Haz launched to enable access to PDF versions of articles (later renamed Kopernio.com).