Open Acess in Ukraine: Cooperation with the policy makers Iryna Kuchma, eIFL OA Program Manager, eIFL.net Presented at the workshop OPEN ACCESS: NEW MODELS FOR SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION May 14-15, 2008 Ilia Chavchavadze State University

How we started Awareness raising 1: – Mass media: March 2004: Article about Open Acess (OA) movement in Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (one of the most influential weeklies) Until now publications about OA journals and repositories in intellectual periodicals like Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Krytyka

Awareness raising 2 Working with professional communities: seminars and workshops: – April 2004: The first seminar about OA journals for the editors of scientific and scholarly journals (society publishers) with the support from National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NAS) – Until now workshops and presentations about OA Journals and Open Repositories for different audience (university librarians, society publishers, academic community)

International event February 17-19, 2005, hosted by National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, organized by International Renaissance Foundation, OSI, NAS, International Association of Academies of Sciences, supported by East-East Program: Partnership Beyond Boarders of OSI and the British Council Ukraine Over 140 researchers, administrators, librarians, information managers from higher educational institutions and scientific research laboratories from 17 countries

One of the results Recommendations that the Ukrainian authorities: – ensure the right of individuals and the public to access information and knowledge and to guarantee that IP regimes are not the obstacles to the public access to knowledge – encourage research and higher educational institutions to practice OA

Most important Recommendations that the Ukrainian authorities: – put an OA condition to state funded researches (except reasonable exceptions) and to provide state fund and technical assistance to research and higher educational institutions to set up and maintain Open repositories (with condition to adopt a policy to encourage or require OA research output)

And Recommendations that the Ukrainian authorities: – support ICT development in libraries, archives, museums and other organizations seeking to enhance access to information and to providing state fund and technical assistance to OA to cultural heritage.

Recommendations sent to Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Ministry of Health of Ukraine, Ministry of Culture and Arts of Ukraine, Parliament Committee on Education and Science, Parliament Committee on Culture and Spirituality, Parliament Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information, International Association of Academies of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine, Ukrainian Academy of Agrarian Sciences, Academy of Law of Ukraine, Academy of Pedagogical Researches, National Institute for Strategical Researches, State Fund for Fundamental Researches, Higher Attestation Committee, UNESCO International Scientific-Educational center on information systems and technologies of NAS of Ukraine, rectors of higher educational institutions.

And Recommendations endorsed by Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister

Access to Knowledge web-site

OA policies development Cooperation is crucial: local partners: – NGO Privacy Ukraine – Internet Access and Training program (IATP) of International Researches and Exchanges Board (IREX) – Fulbright Exchange program – National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – Parliamentary Committee for Education and Science – Internews Ukraine – Ukrainian Internet Society

Next steps The first Parliamentary hearings Developing information society in Ukraine (September 21, 2005) Resulted into Parliamentary Inquiry Harmonization of Governmental Educational Policies re OA (from December 1, 2005)

Tools for lobbying – web-site with public professional recommendations – workshops organized by the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Science, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the National Academy of Sciences, Internet Association of Ukraine, International NGO “Internews Ukraine”, IRF, Microsoft Ukraine, and representative office of Intel in Ukraine. – informational leaflet to all members of the Parliament

Parliamentary Inquiry Harmonization of Governmental Educational Policies re OA (from December 1, 2005): – open access is one of the priorities in developing information society – the Cabinet of Ministers should create favorable conditions for developing open access repositories in archives, libraries, museums and other cultural institutions. – The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine should encourage development of open access resources in science, technology and education with open access condition to state funded researches.

A law Since January 2007 Ukraine has a law - proposed mandate of open access to publicly funded researches. It was widely supported by most of the Parliament members. And it is already the second parliamentary inquiry mandating the Cabinet of Ministers to take actions on creating favorable conditions for developing open access repositories in archives, libraries, museums, scientific and research institutions with open access condition to state funded researches. Law of Ukraine On the principles of developing information society in Ukraine for at

Not working According to the law, 6 month period was mentioned to develop the implementations strategy Governments change, change and change…

Lessons Implementation schedule has to be part of the law / policy mandate Not only libraries, but Universities support and pressure needed

Where we are: OA journals 10 Ukrainian Open Access Journals registered in DOAJ Institute of Software systems and National Library of Ukraine develop a platform to host all Ukrainian OA journals More encouragement needed from National Academy of Sciences for the journals to move on

Where we are: OA IRs 7 pilot open access institutional repositories in Ukraine 2 of them are in the institutes of the National Academy of Sciences – in the Institute of Software Systems ( and in the Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas (

Where we are: OA IRs Others were created in the Universities: in Zhytomyr National University ( in Ukrainian Catholic University ( and in the Centre for the Humanities of Lviv National University ( and in the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy ( and in Kharkiv National Academy for Municipal Administration (

Where we are: OA IRs Open Access repositories are run by -IT departments -university libraries -academic communities

Thank you! Questions? Iryna Kuchma iryna.kuchma [at] eifl.net