I’ve just got back from Guimarães, Portugal where I attended the kick off meeting for PASTEUR4OA (Open Access Policy Alignment Strategy for European Union Research). It was a great meeting, and a great opportunity to meet (and remeet) many people from across the EU interested in Open Acccess, including representatives of SPARC Europe, Jisc and the Open University.

This multi-partner European project aims to help EU Member States develop and implement policies to ensure Open Access to all outputs from publicly funded research, helping to develop (or reinforce) open access strategies and policies at national level. Part of this work will involve mapping existing policies at national and institutional levels, and part of this will be directly engaging policy makers, and helping to develop national centres of expertise.

The Open Knowledge Foundation will be involved in a number areas of work in this project, and we’ll be looking to strengthen the existing Open Access community at the Open Knowledge Foundation, and help increase engagement between our community and policy makers across the EU.

We will also be pushing hard to ensure that when people talk about ‘open access’ as part of this project, they are using the term as defined by the Budapest Open Access Initiative and in agreement with the Open Definition, considering the right to reuse and not just the right to view.

The project is still in its really early stages right now, but we will be sure to provide updates as the project develops!