“Making CGIAR research results available and accessible is both a moral and a business imperative.” This was the message from discussions about Open Access during the recent GCARD2* event.
GCARD2 showed that the Opening Access movement in CGIAR, and the agricultural research for development community at large, is now really gaining momentum. Open Access isn’t new to CGIAR, in fact it has been discussed internally for many years now. You can see the webinar recently held to describe the status of progress on ‘Open Access’ in CGIAR.
We are witnessing a shift that will take our policy commitments from piecemeal to panoramic. So, what has changed?
Political perspectives
At the Camp David Summit in May 2012, G-8 and African leaders committed to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. One objective of the New Alliance is (emphasis added): “to share relevant agricultural data available from G-8 countries with African partners and convene an international conference on Open Data for Agriculture (in 2013), to develop options for the establishment of a global platform to make reliable agricultural and related information available to African farmers, researchers and policymakers, taking into account existing agricultural data systems.”
In June 2012, the G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) was held in Mexico, focusing on four Global Collaborative Research Programmes, which focus predominantly on access to information and data.
Donor perspectives
Connected to the growing political pressure is the increased pressure from donors to go Open Access. A growing number of donors now require open access to be applied to results of the work they fund. DFID and the European Commission are among those who are now adopting this policy.
Institutional mandates are changing
The World Bank recently launched an open data initiative. CGIAR itself recently approved a policy that clarifies CGIAR research results are openly available and accessible by default – and that any deviation has to be justified. CGIAR are also putting in place institutional enablers such as performance management processes, rewards, incentives and other tools to facilitate the implementation of this policy.
Changes in publishing practices and ICT
Publishing practices are also changing. Commercial publishers are starting to relax their policies to accommodate open access options. This is partly due to new ICT scenarios. With social media, the web and mobile technologies changing the way we operate, we have all become both publishers as well as users – and this has changed the publishing landscape dramatically.
How does all this change our commitment to open access?
Happily, many initiatives are already ongoing. CIARD, of which CGIAR is a founding member, has now over 350 organizations committed to it. Whilst action must start at the individual level, we need to move beyond the boundaries of our teams and our organizations to make the commitment to opening access to agriculture knowledge a true global reality. It is now time to move towards collective action to bring the individual efforts to scale!
This was the message that came from a GCARD session entitled “Access, Sharing and Transformation of Agricultural Information.” Chaired by Enrica Porcari (CGIAR) and facilitated by Stephen Rudgard (FAO and CIARD Core Group), over 40 people discussed the building of coherent institutional and network collaborations for improving the sharing, exchange and effective use of data, information and knowledge globally.
The take home message was a call to action for GCARD and all GCARD stakeholders to:
- Continue to engage with the CIARD movement to enhance the coherence and effectiveness of access and use of agricultural information and data
- Call on managers and policy-makers to lead the development of enabling strategies and policies for more effective access and use of information and data
- Call on all of us to collaborate on development of methodologies and indicators for measuring the outcomes of enhancing access information and data
As a follow up to GCARD2, the CGIAR Consortium has published fifteen key commitments for which we can be held accountable. “We commit to making CGIAR an Open Access organization, with policies and standards put in place in 2013 … [and] to making more key data freely available online and to improving transparency…” Onwards!
More information:
Our Punta del Este Commitments (CGIAR.org)
Open Access Topic (CGIAR.org)
GCARD2 (CGIAR.org)
Blog Post on the session in Spanish (GCARD blog)
*The Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2) was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012. GCARD2 focused on the ways to implement the tasks identified in the GCARD RoadMap with special attention to “Foresight and partnership for innovation and impact on small-holder livelihoods”. (Additional information, not vetted as official, on the GCARD blog).