Gathering insights on copyright and open access at Europe academic institutions

At SPARC Europe, we are keen to better understand the topic of copyright for Open Access at research institutions across Europe. 

We are therefore calling for European academic institutions to complete our latest survey, which aims to gain insight into this topic, including the following key areas affecting researchers:

• Copyright of scientific publications – how intellectual property that protects original works of authorship applies to the written outputs of research. Specifically:
  • Whether the initial ownership of copyright is with authors or their employing organisation;
  • What rights are transferred from authors to the publisher.
• Author rights retention – the extent to which researchers retain rather than transfer control of their published research.
• Open licensing – the promotion of licences which grant permission to access, reuse, and redistribute.
• Reuse of scientific publications – ensuring that the written outputs of research can be reused by the community as a whole but also by the original author in new contexts.

The survey takes 15 minutes to complete and should be filled in by end of Friday, 11 November 2022. By filling it in, you will help us build a picture of the current copyright support and policy offering for Open Access at academic institutions in Europe.

Note that this survey forms part of the work done as part of ​​Project Retain, a one-year project led by SPARC Europe as part of The Knowledge Rights 21 (KR21) Programme, which aims to promote change in European copyright and support Open Access. The project is funded by the Arcadia Fund.

Click here to complete the survey. We are very grateful to you!

For any questions, please contact Vanessa Proudman via email at: survey@sparceurope.org