The Right to Research Coalition

Congratulations to Lillian Juma for winning the Right to Research Next Generation Leadership Award for 2017. Each year, we present this award to someone we believe is doing exemplary work in the community in advancing Open Research.

Based out of Nairobi, Lillian has hosted two OpenCon satellite events, and during Open Access Week in 2016, she organized the first “Train the Trainers” Open Advocacy program in Kenya. This was an initiative focused on capacity-building through training a cohort of over 20 ambassadors who were in turn, empowered to advocate for Open Access to other students, researchers, policy makers within their own institutions.

Lillian accepts the award and shares some remarks in this video.

Congratulations Lillian!

R2RC Next Generation Leadership Award

This Open Access Week, check out Erin McKiernan's new article on Imagining the Open University. In the article, she puts forward actions universities can take to support open scholarship — read more at:

Imagining the “open” university: Sharing scholarship to improve research and education This Perspective article argues that universities should take action to support open scholarship that benefits society and to return to their core missions of knowledge dissemination, community engagement, and public good.

Today's the first day of Open Access Week 2017!

Visit https://openinorder.to/ — a site for Open Access Week launched today by SPARC—and explore some of the exciting and diverse ways Open Access is making an impact!

Looking for ideas and tools for organizing Open Access Week activities on campus? Check out the Open Action Kit, a resource made by some librarians from the OpenCon community:

"We’ve compiled a bunch of resources and tools to help everyone from novices to veterans. This project is here to help you get inspired, connect with each other, make a plan, run a successful action, and tell the story of your success."

This year’s theme for Open Access Week is “Open in Order to…” An Action Kit for Participating in OA Week 2017

International Open Access Week is coming up in just over a month! This year's theme — "Open in Order To"— encourages us to think about the concrete benefits of making scholarly outputs openly available. You can download posters for your campus or community at: http://openaccessweek.org/page/englishhigh-resolution-1

"Over the past 2 years, more than 150 German libraries, universities, and research institutes have formed a united front trying to force academic publishers into a new way of doing business. Instead of buying subscriptions to specific journals, consortium members want to pay publishers an annual lump sum that covers publication costs of all papers whose first authors are at German institutions. Those papers would be freely available around the world; meanwhile, German institutions would receive access to all the publishers’ online content."

A bold open-access push in Germany could change the future of academic publishing A bold open-access push in Germany could change the future of academic publishing 0 By Helen Clark on 23 August 2017 Science Gretchen Vogel Kai Kupferschmidt BERLIN—In a third-floor conference room here overlooking the famous Potsdamer Platz, once bisected by the Berlin Wall, the future of academic…

Looking for ideas for Open Access Week this October? Join this month's OpenCon Community Call on August 30th, where we'll be hearing about different ideas for campaigns, projects, and actions to take on this October 23 - 29!

RSVP and find more details on how to join here:

OpenCon August Community Call OpenCon community calls give a chance for you to learn what's happening in open research and education around the world, share what you're doing and find collaborators and opportunities.

Bassel Khartabil was Creative Commons' Syria project lead, and a friend to many in the global open knowledge community — he was executed in 2015 by the Syrian government.

"Contributions to the fund will go towards projects, programs, and grants to individuals advancing collaboration, community building, and leadership development in the open communities of the Arab world."

https://creativecommons.org/bassel/?utm_campaign=bassel&source=web

The Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund - Creative Commons Bassel Khartabil was Creative Commons’ Syrian project lead, an open source software programmer, teacher, Wikipedia contributor, and free culture advocate. He was also a devoted son and husband, and a great friend to many in the global open knowledge community. At the request of Bassel’s family, Crea...

Tomorrow is the final day to apply to attend OpenCon 2017 in Berlin this November!

Submit your application today at: www.opencon2017.org/apply

We're excited to listen to The Taproot—a new podcast that "digs beneath the surface to understand how scientific publications in plant biology are created. In each episode, co-hosts Liz Haswell and Ivan Baxter take a paper from the literature and talk about the story behind the science with one of its authors."

The first episode is on Open Science!

https://plantae.org/blog/taproot-episode-1-season-1-extreme-open-science-and-the-meaning-of-scientific-impact-with-sophien-kamoun/

Plantae | Taproot Episode 1, Season 1: Extreme Open Science and the Meaning of Scientific Impact with Sophien Kamoun Taproot Episode 1, Season 1: Extreme Open Science and the Meaning of Scientific Impact with Sophien Kamoun July 14, 2017/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog, Careers, Careers - Blog, Profiles of Plant Scientists, Research, The-Taproot /by Melanie BinderThe Taproot is the podcast that digs beneath the surface t...

We encourage those who are interested in attending OpenCon 2017 in Berlin to apply early!

Apply Now for OpenCon2017 OpenCon 2017 will take place on November 11-13 in Berlin, Germany at the Max Planck Society’s Harnack House. It will bring together students and early career academic professionals from around the world who want to advance Open Access, Open Education, and Open Data. Apply now to attend and request a...

Please share, and contribute if you can!

Diego Gomez, a 29 year old conservation biologist, is facing up to 8 years in prison for sharing a research paper online. Sharing information online is something many of us do everyday.

When a student faces prison for sharing a PDF, we know the copyright system is broken. Support Diego's legal expenses by contributing to the crowdfunding campaign: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/compartir-no-es-delito-sharing-is-not-a-crime