User:Filippo Morsiani/Open access in Poland

In Poland Open Access is embraced and implemented almost independently by three different groups: librarians, researchers and government agencies. Even without coordination, systematic work of OA advocates results in steadily growing number of OA journals (as of June 2015, 293  indexed by DOAJ so far) and OA repositories (87 in OpenDOAR).

Additionally, the general public also shows its support for the concept – the petition for Open Mandate initiated at the beginning of 2012 signed over 10000 people, of which substantial amount did not claim academic affiliation. There are currently two OA policies registered in ROARMAP.

2014: In Poland, the OpenAIRE partner Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM) announced an Open Access mandate. Also in Poland, Open Science Platform Legal Assistant was launched – an interactive tool for scientists, publishers, research funders and research units was launched to provide a legal advice.

Enabling Environment
EIFL work with Poznan Foundation of Scientific Libraries a consortium of 12 members consisting of; Three organisations have signed the Berlin Declaration: Collegium Artium; University of Warsaw; Wikimedia Polska.
 * Poznań Libraries;
 * Poznan University of Technology;
 * Adam Mickiewicz University;
 * University of Economics;
 * University of Medical Sciences;
 * Academy of Agriculture;
 * The Raczynski Library;
 * Poznan Society of Friends of Science and Arts;
 * Academy of Physical Education;
 * Academy of Music;
 * Academy of Fine Arts;
 * Polish Academy of Sciences.

OA advocacy is conducted by ICM University of Warsaw, EBIB Society, Coalition for Open Education, Creative Commons Poland, Digital Centre, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics PAS and many other independent researchers and librarians. Government repeatedly surveys the academics for the possibility of introducing OA mandate for scholarly articles or theses.

Major Projects/Initiatives
In 2010 Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics Polish Academy of Science introduced OA mandate as a first institution in Poland. Polish Academy of Science could not introduce such mandate on behalf of all institutes, but nevertheless shortly after IBB's mandate, PAS moved its journals to an Open Access platform.

OA fees are covered for authors depositing research from Polish institutions following an agreement between ICM University of Warsaw, acting on behalf of the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and Springer in May 2010. All faculty and students affiliated with an academic, educational or scientific research institute in Poland are now encouraged to make use of Springer’s Open Choice option.

ICM University of Warsaw also coordinates an initiative of building software layer of the national repository of scholarly works (project SYNAT). ICM UW already launched Centre for Open Science, the repository of OA scholarly works. Independently, the Federation of Digital Libraries of Poznan Supercomputing Centre created a federated repository of all open resources available at Polish libraries and academic institutions. Currently it holds over 1 million records.

Creative Commons Poland has been active since 2005 and is a key player. In 2009 it prepared "The Guide to Open Science"  which was mostly focused on OA.

Details of Key Organizations
Ministry of Science and Higher Education has the responsibility for research funding, developing and implementing research policy. The Ministry also assesses research institutions and research projects.

National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR)  is a government funded agency with the responsibility for managing and implementing scientific research programmes. This includes commercialisation and practical implementation of research outputs and development programmes for scientists.

National Science Centre (NCN): Is a government funded agency similar to NCBiR, but focused on basic science. In case of introducing a national OA mandate, NCN will be responsible for introducing the policy in their grant calls.

Past and Future OA Related Activities
26-27 May 2015: Training the trainers for OA and Open Science, Poland – Centrum Cyfrowe and Centre of e-Learning of AGH – University of Science and Technology hosted a FOSTER co-funded workshop on open access (OA) and Open Science.

7-8 May 2015: OA AND OPEN POLICY TRAINING AT THE NATIONAL SCIENCE CENTRE, POLAND – FOSTER training session aimed to help National Science Centre staff understand the changes that are happening in research communication in Poland and around the world. Centrum Cyfrowe and ICM  (Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling, University of Warsaw) ran a FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) co-funded training session about open access (OA) for the staff of the National Science Centre in Kraków, Poland. Participants were trained on how to inform researchers that receive funding from the National Science Centre about the possibilities and advantages of OA, as well as learning how to implement an open policy at the National Science Centre.

The Open Science Platform (unit within ICM) has supported a range of Open Access Week events organized by the Coalition for Open Education, the Library of the University of Łódź and Białystok University Library.

Plans include: Creating a model of the first Polish OA repository; Promoting OA in scientific societies (through press, seminars, portal); Participating in European initiatives and conferences.

List of Publications

 * During OAW2014 the Polish translation of Peter Suber’s book "Open Access" was presented,  prepared by the Open Science Platform team and made available in open access in mobile formats.  Two videos were added to a series of interviews with leaders of the Open Access movement in the world, on the website otwartanauka.pl, harvested by ICM: one with prof. Nicholas Canny, responsible for issues related to the openness in the European Research Council and one with prof. John Willinsky, representing the Public Knowledge Project.
 * ICM UW (2011) Implementation and promotion of OA. Report commissioned by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.
 * Bednarek-Michalska,B (2007) Open access in Poland. Torun, Poland. Krynicka, M (2010) Open access to national bibliography: Polish approach. Paper presented at IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 10–15 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden.
 * Park, J (2009) Open Education and Open Science in Poland, May 14, 2009. Notes on Open Science in Poland, Warsaw.
 * Swan, A. (2010) Open Access – What's in it for Poland? In: Second International Conference on Open Access in Poland, 14–15 January 2010, Torun, Poland.