Overview

Ukraine was one of the first-ever countries where EIFL began promoting open access, with an awareness raising workshop in 2004. Since then there have been many training and awareness raising events in Ukraine, in collaboration with the Association ‘Informatio-Consortium’, Ukrainian Library Association, ELibUkr Consortium and the Mohyla School of Journalism (National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy). Thousands of  researchers, students, research administrators and managers, journal editors and librarians have taken part in training on open access and open science practices and strategies. 

In 2015 EIFL took on the role of Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) Associate Editor to help Ukrainian open access publishers to improve policies and workflows to meet best practices in publishing.  A National Repository Working Group was set up in 2018 to steer repository activities in the country. 

In 2021, EIFL joined a partnership to start a new, Erasmus+ funded project to promote openness and transparency in research by fostering open science practices among early career researchers and others who are interested.  Follow the progress of the OPTIMA (Open Practices, Transparency and Integrity for Modern Academia) project here.

TIMELINE

2004 - 2024

MAIN ACTIVITIES

• Advocacy and awareness raising about open access and open science
• Developing promotional and advocacy material
• Training 
• Strengthening open access journals and repositories
• Developing open science courses for early career researchers 
• Open access and open science policy development

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Adoption of a national open science plan: In October 2022 the Government approved a National Open Science Plan stipulating integration of open science into all national science, research, education, technology and innovation policies, strategies and action plans, by 2024. The Plan introduces a new job profile of open science experts and research data stewards; encourages Ukrainian open access journals to register with the DOAJ; allocates Government funding for a national research repository to be integrated with institutional repositories; encourages citizen science; improves research assessment and evaluation; and builds open science skills and competencies. 
• 437 open access journals indexed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) by June 2023. 
• 169 open access repositories set up.
• 17 institutional open access policies adopted.  
• The Open Access to Knowledge Statement has been endorsed by over 150 Ukrainian university librarians (on 21 May 2009) .
• An open Access to research output clause is included in the Olvia Declaration of the Universities in Ukraine: Academic Freedom, University Autonomy, Science and Education for Sustainable Development, which was endorsed by 26 rectors at the Olvia Forum in June 2009.
• Open access and open science have been integrated into  national laws, for example, the Law of Ukraine On the Principles of Developing Information Society in Ukraine in 2007-2015
• The National Initiative of the European Open Science Cloud Initiative was launched in November 2020.