Open Access: Background
Aim of Open Access
In addition to articles, ZonMw encourages making available other types of scientific publications via Open Access, such as monographs, books, conference proceedings and grey literature, but also the research data and knowledge products of practice-oriented research, such as models, protocols, prototypes, digital tools and demonstrations. ZonMw also encourages that research data be made ‘FAIR’, as a result of which they are findable online by people and computers. As so succinctly worded by the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences:
This openness is essential for encouraging the circulation and creation of knowledge, so that the impact of practice-oriented research is enhanced. This impact is then practically visible in professional practice in business, at municipalities, in health care institutions and in education.
What is the advantage of Open Access to you, the researcher?
Your publication about your research results contributes positively to knowledge accumulation and the distribution of the results. Research results are made better visible, more quickly, with the potential for greater impact and higher citation scores. It has also been demonstrated that Open Access publications that are better findable are more often cited and have a greater outreach. Furthermore, the reading public is broader, both among scientific and social stakeholders. For example, among collaboration partners in science and society (for example patients’ associations) who can contribute to reinforcing the impact of the research work.
Open Access and Health Care research
It is the ambition of the Dutch government that all publicly funded research be made Open Access. To achieve this, 10 parties including NWO and ZonMw signed the National Plan Open Science in 2017 (in Dutch). The current state of affairs (in Dutch) in the field of Open Access for health research was evaluated in 2017, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. In the inventory report, stricter recommendations were issued for health care research in respect of the following points:
- Open Access publication in health journals is on average more costly than in journals relating to other disciplines and is therefore more difficult to achieve.
- The perceived urgency of access and understandability is higher among patients and healthcare professionals than among average citizens and professionals in other sectors.
- The incentive to perform in respect of publication in journals with a high impact factor is (even) more emphatically present in health research than in other disciplines.
All of these factors mean that Open Access publication is of vital importance, specifically in respect of health research. The European plan to accelerate the transition to publication in Open Access journals and on Open Access platforms ties in with these recommendations.
More information about Open Access
See also www.openaccess.nl (maintained by VSNU, NWO, SURF and UKB). Here, project managers and others can find information and answers to their questions about: What does the government want? What does science want? What is the current state of affairs? What is my role? What agreements are there with publishers? Which publishers publish everything in Open Access? Can you also publish in your own university repository? NB: Every university has a helpdesk for support and information.