As of 2022, science in Portugal will change paradigm thanks to the entry into force of the contracts entered into by the Online Knowledge Library (b-on) with publishers for the three-year period 2022-2024. The change will allow Portugal to embody the international Open Access movement.
The first 3 of 12 agreements have recently come into force and include the possibility of open access publication of about 2000 articles as early as 2022.
Following the principles of Open Access, these contracts allow, apart from the ability to read the articles made available, to give the authors who are linked to b-on member institutions, the possibility of publishing their articles in open access in some of the journals available at b-on.
Open access publishing makes the article immediately accessible to anyone, anywhere, and does not involve any cost for the accesser. It also implies the possibility of reuse of the article by third parties, thus fostering the growth of global knowledge. On the other hand, the open access publication allowed by the agreements, exempts the author from paying any publication fees, since this is done under the cover of the price paid annually by FCT to the publishers.
In the opinion of Madalena Alves, President of the Board of Directors of FCT, "Portugal, by principle and size, should support the designs of open science. To do so, it must offer researchers the means to easily adopt this paradigm shift."
He adds that "with this renegotiation, FCT offers researchers and university students in Portugal the possibility, in addition to accessing a wider universe of articles, to publish the science they produce in open access without additional charges. This is a central element in the FCT's open science policy, together with the creation of open access repositories of all the science generated by the national scientific ecosystem, which FCT has so well invested in. There is still a lot to do, but I have no doubt that we are moving in the right direction."
More information at the b-on website.
