The open access (in UMinho and in the world): where are we and where are we going?

Abstract

Open access, which has been defined, as we know it today, twelve years ago through the Budapest Declaration, had a significant development in the last decade. University of Minho was one of the pioneering institutions in the implementation of open access. Its institutional repository (RepositóriUM), created in 2003, has grown and established itself within and outside the institution as a success story. The establishment of an institutional policy of self-archiving of UMinho scientific production has contributed decisively to this success. Taking into consideration the experience of the University of Minho in the last ten years, as well as the analysis of the overall development of open access in the same period, this article aims to review and discuss the current situation of open access worldwide. We affirm that open access already appears to be inevitable, but there is still much uncertainty about the shape and pace of the transition to it.  This transition can be driven by the scientific community and its institutions, or by the scientific publishing industry. We conclude by presenting some of the main directions of the strategy for open access that UMinho will continue in the coming years.