From Open Access to Open Science: innovation in scholarly communication

Abstract

Open Science is often presented as the overarching “umbrella” of Open Access and Open Data, amongst others. In this article, we start from the finding that, for many years, Open Access to knowledge and research has been a generally accepted principle in Latin America. The Open Access movement in Latin America can even be considered a global pioneer with regards to raising the visibility of research output through channels outside the traditional scholarly communication model. In terms of Open Data, the LEARN project (2015-2017) has come to the conclusion that, while important challenges remain in terms of actual implementations of policies, institutions in Latin America (and the Caribbean) are generally well aware of the importance of research data management (RDM) and seem to accept the general principle of openness of data from publicly funded research. This makes Latin America, in principle, well positioned to move towards Open Science, as a way to rethink the traditional scholarly communication model, and explore more innovative, transparent and inclusive ways to exchange research output on a regional and global level.