Survey: Gathering insights on copyright and open access at Europe academic institutions

20th October 2022

SPARC Europe, which is undertaking work on rights retention and open licensing for the Knowledge Rights 21 Programme through Project Retain, is gathering inputs to help understand the landscape of copyright for Open Access at research institutions across Europe. 

It is therefore calling for European academic institutions to complete a 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, respondents will help build a picture of the current copyright support and policy offering for Open Access at academic institutions in Europe.

Click here to complete the survey – we are grateful for your responses. For any questions, please contact Vanessa Proudman via email at: survey@sparceurope.org