Open access in Belgium

Growth of open access publications in Belgium, 1990-2018

In Belgium, open access to scholarly communication accelerated after 2007 when the University of Liège adopted its first open-access mandate. The "Brussels Declaration" for open access was signed by officials in 2012.

The presence of many Belgium research organizations to the Berlin Declaration on Open access, and the creation of Immediate Deposit and Optional Access mandate at ULG in 2007, led to the Brussels Declaration on Open Access signed in 2012 by the Minister of research. This Declaration enabled Belgium to have a broad network of institutional open-access repositories by circulating the results to Belgian academic and scientific research.

Repositories

There are some 23 collections of scholarship in Belgium housed in digital open access repositories. They contain journal articles, book chapters, data, and other research outputs that are free to read. The Université catholique de Louvain, Ghent University's "Academic Bibliography", and University of Liège's "Orbi" hold many publications.

BELSPO open research data mandate

The BELSPO (Belgian Federal Science Policy Office) mandate was introduced on 21 November 2019. The policy aims at complying with the FAIR data principles in a more sustainable manner, and is applicable to digital data whose collection has been funded either partially or entirely by the BELSPO. The Data management plan (DMP) was to be integrated in March 2020.

See also

Number of open access publications in various Belgian repositories, 2018

• Internet in Belgium
• Education in Belgium
• Media of Belgium
• List of libraries in Belgium
• Science and technology in Belgium
• Open access in other countries

Further reading

• Charles-Henry Nyns (2010), "Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Belgium", Communia: the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain
• Richard Poynder (2011), "OA Interviews: Bernard Rentier, Rector of the University of Liège", Open and Shut?, UK – via BlogSpot
• François Renaville; et al. (2012), L'Open Access en Belgique francophone Étude de la BICfB réalisée à la demande des Recteurs des universités et du F.R.S.-FNRS [Open Access in French-speaking Belgium: report by BICfB at the request of the Rectors of the Universities and the FRS-FNRS] (in French), Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de la Communauté française de Belgique, hdl:2268/124876
• Swan, Alma (2015), Institutional Policy Implementation at the University of Liege, Belgium, PASTEUR4OA Case Study, doi:10.5281/zenodo.44308
• Walt Crawford (2018). "Belgium". Gold Open Access by Country 2012-2017. US: Cites & Insights Books.

External links

• "Open Access in Belgium", Open Access Belgium: Promoting Open Science, Ghent University Library and University of Liège Library. (Overview guide)
  • Links to resources by subject: architecture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, economics, engineering, humanities, informatics, information technology, law, medicine, pharmacy, physics, political science, psychology, social sciences.
  • Belgian Open Access Bibliography
• "OA in Belgium". Open Access in Practice: EU Member States. OpenAIRE.
• "Browse by Country: Europe: Belgium". Registry of Open Access Repositories. UK.
• "(Search: Country of Publisher: Belgium)". Directory of Open Access Journals. UK: Infrastructure Services for Open Access.
• Peter Suber (ed.). "(Belgium)". Open Access Tracking Project. Harvard University. OCLC 1040261573. News and comment from the worldwide movement for open access to research
• "Browse by Country: Belgium". ROARMAP: Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies. UK: University of Southampton.
• "Our members: Belgium". Sparceurope.org. SPARC Europe. Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
• Open Knowledge Belgium (videos).