For Immediate Release
Contact: Chealsye Bowley, +1 303-862-3017, boai20anniversary@gmail.com
20 Anniversary of Open Access Marked with Recommendations
Global group calls for greater equity and inclusivity in sharing knowledge.
thWORLDWIDE (15 March 2022) – Twenty years ago, the Budapest Open Access Initiative(BOAI) convened a diverse group of stakeholders and launched a worldwide campaign for open
access (OA) to all new peer-reviewed research. The BOAI deliberately drew together existing
projects to explore how they might “work together to achieve broader, deeper, and fastersuccess.”
It resulted in a groundbreaking initiative that has been widely embraced by stakeholders, and thathas stimulated significant progress toward the global understanding and adoption of a new wayof sharing knowledge. The BOAI was the first to define the term “open access,” and its
definition has since become canonical, frequently cited in the context of open access policies,
practices, and laws around the world. The BOAI’s recognition of complementary strategies forimplementing OA has been adopted extensively across disciplines and in numerous countries.
”By ‘open access’ to this [research] literature, we mean its free availability on the public
internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the fulltexts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them forany other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those
inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction anddistribution and the only role for copyright in this domain should be to give authors control overthe integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”
To mark its 20th anniversary, a global community consultation was conducted, and a new set ofrecommendations are being released that take stock of progress toward open access and examine
the main obstacles to its widespread adoption.
Four key recommendations are highlighted – all of which are designed to ensure that existing
inequities in systems of sharing knowledge are dismantled, and that new structures aredeliberately designed in ways that promote inclusiveness in creating, contributing to, accessing,and benefiting from knowledge:

1. Host OA research on open infrastructure. Host and publish OA texts, data,
metadata, code, and other digital research outputs on open, community-controlled
infrastructure. Use infrastructure that minimizes the risk of future access restrictions orcontrol by commercial organizations. Where open infrastructure is not yet adequate forcurrent needs, develop it further.

2. Reform research assessment and rewards to improve incentives. Adjust researchassessment practices for funding decisions and university hiring, promotion, and tenure
decisions. Eliminate disincentives for OA and create positive new incentives for OA.
3. Favor inclusive publishing and distribution channels that never exclude authors
on economic grounds. Take full advantage of OA repositories and no-APC journals(“green” and “diamond” OA). Move away from article processing charges (APCs).
4. When we spend money to publish OA research, remember the goals to which OA
is the means. Favor models which benefit all regions of the world, which are controlled
by academic-led and nonprofit organizations, which avoid concentrating new OA
literature in commercially dominant journals, and which avoid entrenching models inconflict with these goals. Move away from read-and-publish agreements.
“For CLACSO — a network of 836 research centers in 55 countries — these #BOAI20
recommendations tackle systemic problems that obstruct progress of open access toward a more
equitable and inclusive global open science future,” notes Karina Batthyány, CLACSO’s
Executive Director
In addition, a set of reflections written by noted thought leaders in the open access community
providing additional perspectives on where the open access movement should concentrate its
efforts will also be released.
A small working group of volunteers convened to synthesize the community feedback and reflect
on the values, goals, and continued efforts of the open access movement. Members of theBOAI20 Steering Group are listed alphabetically below:ooooooDominique Babini, Open Science Advisor, CLACSO
Leslie Chan, Director, Knowledge Equity Lab, University of Toronto ScarboroughMelissa Hagemann, Senior Program Officer, Open Society Foundations
Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC
Iryna KuchmaPeter Suber, Senior Advisor on Open Access, Harvard Library

An open webcast featuring discussions with the BOAI Steering Committee is planned forThursday, 31 March at 12:00 Eastern. Register to attend live or receive a recording.
We encourage you to watch the BOAI twitter feed (@TheBOAI) for updates and follow#BOAI20 for reactions from the Open community on the impact of the BOAI and open access ingeneral.

“I'm honored to take part in the new BOAI recommendations,” said Peter Suber, Senior Advisor
on Open Access at Harvard Library. “The steering committee was overflowing with ideas andcould have agreed on dozens of recommendations. But we reached quick agreement to focus onjust four. These four reflect changes that have taken place since the BOAI launched 20 years ago.
They look beyond some current strategies for achieving OA to strategies more aligned with longterm goals to which OA is a means, in particular, the equity, quality, usability, and sustainabilityof research.”###