Open Research Forum: University of Galway's Research Publishing Policy: Empowering our Research Community

Save the date for our next Open Research Forum on 20 May 2026, “University of Galway's Research Publishing Policy: Empowering our Research Community”. This event is hosted by University of Galway Library Research Services.  

 

Agenda: Wednesday, 20 May 

12.00: Keynote: Arushi Sharma, Trinity College Dublin, SCOIR project  

12.20: Claire O'Connor, Director of Planning and Institutional Research 

12:30: Martin Leahy, Research Integrity Officer 

12:40: Panel questions and responses 

13:00: Light lunch 

 

Venue: Hardiman Building Seminar Room, THB-G010, University of Galway 

 

Please register here for catering purposes: registration link. 

Topic 

Research publishing attains its highest standards when grounded in openness. This forum unveils the University’s Research Publishing Policy. Galway is the first Irish institution to introduce such a policy, based on the framework created by Project SCOIR (Secondary rights, Copyright, Open access, Institutional policies, and Rights retention), funded by the National Open Research Forum (NORF). Participants will hear how this works in practice, and learn how it provides free, straightforward open access to their research publications while aligning with funder policies. A key component of the policy is the concept of rights retention, which empowers all authors to retain copyright over their research publications.  

 

Speakers 

Our keynote speaker, Arushi Sharma, Trinity College Dublin, will set out the national position (including the Bill and its practical implications), situate this within the broader international developments around rights retention, and speak to how these frameworks operate in practice for researchers and institutions. She is an Associate Researcher with Project SCOIR, where she has contributed to the development of the draft Research Outputs and Open Access Bill 2025.  

Arushi has engaged in discussions with policymakers and presented on rights retention and open research policy in academic settings. She also served as Communications Officer for Project SCOIR, supporting national-level engagement on open research and rights retention. She is also a PhD researcher in Law at Trinity College Dublin, where her research focuses on data protection in the financial sector, with a comparative analysis of Irish and Indian legal frameworks. 

 

Our speakers from Galway include Claire O’Connor, Director of Planning and Institutional Research, and Martin Leahy, Research Integrity Officer. In addition to their substantive roles, they are also both members of the Domain Leading Publishing Outlet List Working Group. The aim of this group is to create and maintain a list of outlets that the University of Galway considers to be excellent. Participants will discuss the advantages of community-defined research excellence, and locally determining what we understand as domain-leading outlets. It promotes responsible research assessment and helps combat journals of questionable integrity by encouraging researchers to publish in and review for excellent outlets.  It is also a key step toward defining University of Galway’s distinctive research impact—what sets our research ahead of other institutions. 

 

Please register here for catering purposes: registration link. 

For further information, feel free to contact Dr. Jen Smith, Open Research Librarian.