Berlin5 - Open Access Conference

OA - the new paradigm for scientific communication

Berlin5, the 5th conference held as a follow-up after the Berlin Declaration, was held 19 to 20 September in Padua, Italy.

 

The conference brought together the various initiatives and key players within the Open Access movement in order to take stock on the OA situation regarding both policy and technical implementation.

 

The audience were:

• funders
• librarians
• publishers (reader-pays and author-pays)
• governmental and non-governmental agencies
• researchers

Hanne Marie Kværndrup reports that:

The message about the OA principle and the consequences of both missing OA as well as the implementation of OA publishing seems to be in progress in more and more countries - both in university and research circles. Yet, there is still a long way to go since research evaluation and prestige are integral parts of the traditional research communication in acknowledged journals.

 

A lot of really good and inspiring presentations were made. The most interesting was the announcement from the EU Commission telling that they are now focusing intensively on OA and the attached issues. Celina Ramjoué specifically emphasised that the presentation of the 25.000 signatures from researchers and research institutions by Knowledge Exchange & SPARC on 15 February this year had had a huge impact.

 

Read more about the conference at the Berlin5 website and visit the blogs of the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development and Peter Murray.

Author: Gitte Krejbich
Date: 03 October 2007