Global initiatives to improve research publishing
By joining global movements to reform research assessment, protect access to information, and accelerate the transition to open publishing, the University of Galway is contributing to a more equitable, sustainable publishing ecosystem.
The University of Galway joined the Irish National Chapter of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment, CoARA, in 2024. The four core commitments of CoARA are as follows:
The National Chapter provides a platform for Irish members of CoARA to exchange knowledge and mutual learning on issues that are specific to Ireland, such as peer review processes, revision of promotion criteria, adoption of DORA and/or other statements on the responsible use of research metrics.
To reinforce our dedication to sustainable research publishing and CoARA, the University of Galway will also sign the following declarations:
Our Future Memory supports the digital rights of libraries to protect current and future access to information. The Digital Rights Statement aims to safeguard the essential digital activities of libraries, archives, and museums (collectively referred to as “memory institutions”). It urges policymakers and communities to ensure these institutions retain the same rights and responsibilities online that they have historically held offline.
The rights and responsibilities that memory institutions have always enjoyed offline must also be protected online. The Four Rights to accomplish this are: collect materials in digital form, preserve digital materials, provide controlled access to digital materials, and cooperate with our future memory institutions.
Irish Universities Association Librarians’ Group (IUALG) have recently signed the Digital Rights Statement, strengthening the global coalition defending memory institutions’ digital rights. They join more than forty umbrella organisations and institutions worldwide that have endorsed the Four Rights.
“The Irish Universities Association Librarians’ group is pleased to sign this statement. We, as academic librarians, affirm that people’s right to learn depends on libraries’ ability to collect, preserve, and provide access in the digital realm just as we have always done in the physical one. These principles are not aspirational; they are essential to safeguarding global knowledge for generations to come.”
OA2020 is a global alliance pursuing the large-scale implementation of free online access to, and largely unrestricted use and reuse of scholarly works. The OA2020 Initiative was established to deliberate on concrete actions that would finally offer an incisive, feasible and rapid path toward an open information environment.
Building on the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, and the pursuant, urgent Mission Statement of 2013, OA2020 aims to accelerate the transition to open access by transforming the existing corpus of scientific journals from their current subscription system to open access. The transformation envisioned by OA2020 is founded on analysis that shows there is already enough money within journal publishing to allow for a transition to open access that will be – at a minimum – cost-neutral.
Barcelona Declaration signatories are taking a lead in transforming the way research information is used and produced. The research information landscape requires fundamental change. Openness of information about the conduct and communication of research must be the new norm. Like CoARA, the Barcelona Declaration has four commitments:
Open research information enables science policy decisions to be made based on transparent evidence and inclusive data. It enables information used in research evaluations to be accessible and auditable by those being assessed. And it enables the global movement toward open science to be supported by information that is fully open and transparent.
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