International Open Access Week 2020 (OA Week 2020) takes place from 19 - 25 October, and EIFL will be celebrating with libraries and researchers in our partner countries.

OA Week is an annual, global event established by SPARC to raise awareness about open access and to call for open access to be the norm in scholarship and research. The theme this year is ‘Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion’.  Iryna Kuchma, Manager of the EIFL Open Access Programme, is a member of the Open Access Week 2020 Advisory Committee. 

Monday, 19 October: 

• Kuchma will kick-off EIFL’s OA Week 2020 celebrations, and celebrations at the Open University in Botswana, at a joint event with EIFL’s partner, the Botswana Libraries Consortium (BLC). Gitau Njoroge, EIFL-OA country coordinator in Kenya will also speak at the event.  
• Kuchma will also participate in the Information Meeting with UNESCO Permanent Delegations on the first draft of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and the next steps in developing the Recommendation. Read more about the draft Recommendation and how EIFL contributed here. 

Tuesday, 20 October:

• Gwen Franck, EIFL Open Access Programme Coordinator, will host a public release of the OpenAIRE-DARIAH Community Gateway at a joint OpenAIRE-DARIAH (Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities) webinar titled, ‘How do you make your research more visible and more connected?’ at 15:00 CEST. Click here to register. 
• Kuchma will talk about Research Data Management and Open Access to publications and data at the webinar hosted by Nazarbayev University Library.

Wednesday, 21 October: 

• COAR (the Confederation of Open Access Repositories), EIFL and OpenAIRE will host a panel discussion on ‘Equity and inclusion: community-owned infrastructures for open science’, at 16:00 CEST. Register here. 
• Kuchma will speak at an OA Week webinar at the American University of Central Asia, hosted by EIFL’s partner in Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyzstan Library Information Consortium (KLIC). More details and event links (in Russian). 

Thursday, 22 October: 

• Kuchma will speak at a panel discussion entitled ‘Open Access in the time of COVID-19’, hosted by Qatar National Library. More information and registration. 
• Franck will host two webinars: 
  • OpenAIRE webinar at 14:00 CEST, ‘Towards a scholarly commons’, looking at platform interoperability and open access transformation. Register here. 
  • A joint OpenAIRE/Eurodoc webinar at 16:00 CEST, ‘Open Science Ambassadors: How can early career researchers boost open science?’ Register here. 

Friday, 23 October:

• COAR, EIFL and OpenAIRE will host a panel discussion on ‘Equity and inclusion: open science policies’ with Dr Mr Yuan Junpeng, National Science Library of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Head of Research Integrity and Responsible Innovation Committee of the Chinese Association for Science of Science and S&T Policy, about "The new research assessment reforms in China----Eradicating the 'Five Only' in S&T management", at 12:00 CEST. Kuchma will moderate the session. Register here. 
• Kuchma will present the OpenAIRE COVID-19 Gateway at the NEICON Open Access Week webinar (Russian, register here).  

Tuesday, 27 October, 15:00 SAST: Kuchma will wrap up EIFL’s OA Week 2020 celebrations by participating in a discussion on ‘Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion’, that is part of the  Local and Global Perspectives conversations series organized by the University of Johannesburg.  

This is the third consecutive year in which the theme focuses on the urgent need for action on equity and inclusion, building on discussion in 2018 (‘Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge’), and 2019 (‘Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge’). Find out more about OA Week 2020 here.