EIFL support has contributed to national recognition and support for open access from the main national actors in research and development in Slovenia, and created a sustainable mechanism for organized and systematic dissemination of information about open access in Slovenian.

When EIFL began supporting open access (OA) in Slovenia in 2011, information about OA in the country was scattered, and information in the Slovenian language was scarce.

Individual OA enthusiasts and supporters were promoting OA and sharing information with academic and research communities, but their efforts were not coordinated.

With a small grant from EIFL, a consortium of 13 Slovenian universities, research institutions and research libraries organized an OA awareness-raising and advocacy campaign. The consortium also agreed that the main engine for the campaign would be a national web-portal to share knowledge about OA, in Slovenian.

Advocacy campaigns win national recognition

Organized and led by the consortium, which represents the majority of active researchers in the country, OA advocacy and awareness raising campaigns have made an impact, winning recognition and support for OA from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology, the Science and Technology Directorate at the Ministry, and the Slovenian Research Agency.

Today, a core group of OA advocates drawn from the consortium acts as a national advisory body on OA, giving input into national and institutional policies and strategies, like the mizs.gov.si/si/delovna_podrocja/direktorat_za_znanost/sektor_za_znanost/strategije_s_podrocja_znanosti/nacionalna_strategija_odprtega_dostopa_do_znanstvenih_objav_in_raziskovalnih_podatkov_v_sloveniji_2015_2020 National Strategy for Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Slovenia 2015-2020.

WEB-PORTAL PROVIDES UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION

The web-portal - OPENACCESS.SI - was up and running quickly. Launched in 2011, and upgraded in 2017, the website provides information for academics, researchers, librarians and OA journal publishers and editors. By August 2017, the website was attracting an average of over 21,500 visitors a month.

Volunteer OA teams drawn from universities and research institutes, and coordinated by the consortium, regularly review and update content on the web-portal, ensuring that the research community has a coherent and steady flow of information in Slovenian about international and national developments in relation to open science, open access and open research data, availability of funding for OA research, and best practices and guidelines for publishing OA journals.

FIND OUT MORE

Find out more about EIFL’s support for OA open research data and open science in Slovenia.

EIFL is also involved in supporting OA, open research data  and open science in Slovenia through the FOSTER (Facilitating Open Science Training for European Research) and OpenAIRE projects.