Declarations in support of OA

This list is part of the Open Access Directory.

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• This is a list of declarations, principles, and public statements in support of open access. It's not designed for statements limited to the positions of individual organizations.

• When possible, please include the date and sponsoring organization(s) or author(s).

• Chronological.

• Related lists in OAD: (1) Statements by learned societies and professional associations, and (2) Timeline of the open access movement.

• For real-time updates, some not yet reflected here, follow the oa.declarations tag of the Open Access Tracking Project.

1964

• June 1964. The Declaration of Helsinki. From the World Medical Association (WMA) for changes in medical research that involve human subjects, in which patients who participate in a medical study "are entitled to be informed about the outcome of the study and to share any benefits that result from it."
  • Also see the new version of the Declaration of Helsinki (below, November 2008).

1991

• July 2, 1991. The "Bromley Principles" Regarding Full and Open Access to "Global Change" Data. By Allan Bromley, published in Policy Statements on Data Management for Global Change Research from the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy.

1996

• February 28, 1996. The Bermuda Principles. From the participants at the International Strategy Meeting on Human Genome Sequencing. The principles assert that "all human genomic sequence information, generated by centres funded for large-scale human sequencing, should be freely available and in the public domain". The U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) adopted the Bermuda principles as policy for all US-funded research on April 9, 1996.
  • Also see the Fort Lauderdale Statement (below, January 2003) and Amsterdam Principles (below, July 2009), reaffirming and extending the Bermuda Principles.

2000

• July 11, 2000. Draft ministerial declaration of the high-level segment submitted by the President of the Economic and Social Council. From the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The declaration called for "universal access to knowledge and information" (Section 15).

• May 10, 2000. Tempe Principles For Emerging Systems of Scholarly Publishing.

2001

• April 27, 2001. Declaration of Havana Towards Equitable Access to Health Information.

2002

• February 14, 2002. Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI). From a meeting convened by the Open Society Institute (Budapest, December 1-2, 2001).
  • Also see the reaffirmation and extension of the BOAI ten years later (below, September 2012).

• October 3, 2002. The Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law. From the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) participating in the Montreal Law via Internet Conference.
  • The Declaration was slightly revised at the LII meetings in Sydney (2003), Paris (2004) and Montreal (2007).

2003

• January 15, 2003. The Fort Lauderdale Statement. Reaffirming and extending the Bermuda Principles from February 1996 (above). From the participants in a meeting sponsored by the Wellcome Trust (Fort Lauderdale, Florida, January 14–15, 2003.)

• June 20, 2003. The Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing. From the participants at a meeting convened by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

• October 19, 2003. The Beijing Declaration on scientific advancement, openness, and cooperation. From the participants in a meeting of the Third World Academy of Sciences.

• October 22, 2003. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. From the Max Planck Society and European Cultural Heritage Online.
  • March 1, 2005. Participants in the Berlin3 conference issued a recommendation that institutions wishing to implement the Berlin Declaration on Open Access should "require their researchers to deposit a copy of all their published articles in an open access repository" and "encourage their researchers to publish their research articles in open access journals where a suitable journal exists and provide the support to enable that to happen." Such institutions needn't re-word or re-sign the Berlin Declaration, but merely register their commitment and describe their policies.

• December 4, 2003. Access to Scientific Information. From the Interacademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), a consortium of science academies from around the world. The statement endorses some OA initiatives without using the term "open access".

• December 12, 2003. Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. From the UN World Summit on the Information Society. Explicit, if brief, endorsements of OA.

2004

• January 30, 2004. Declaration on Access to Research Data From Public Funding (esp. Annex 1). From the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and signed by ministerial representatives from 34 nations.
  • Also see the subsequent work of the drafters, The Public Domain of Digital Research Data (undated), and Recommendation of the Council concerning Access to Research Data from Public Funding, December 14, 2006.

• February 24, 2004. IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation. From the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), adopted December 5, 2003, published February 24, 2004.

• March 16, 2004. Washington D.C. Principles for Free Access to Science. From a 48 group of publishers now known as the DC Principles Coalition. The DC Principles support some forms of free online access, but not OA, and the Coalition often lobbies against national OA policies.

• March 26, 2004. The ALPSP Principles of Scholarship-Friendly Journal Publishing Practice. From the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP).

• May 21, 2004. The Campinas Statement on Open Access. From the participants at the 2nd Simposio Internaciaonal Bibliotecas Digitais (II SIBD or International Digital Libraries Symposium) in Campinas, Brazil, on May 21, 2004.

• May 25, 2004. The Statement on open access to scholarly information. From the Group of Eight, Australia's eight leading research universities.

• July 5, 2004. The Göttingen Declaration on Copyright for Education and Research. From Germany's Coalition for Action: Copyright for Education and Research (Aktionsbündnis: Urheberrecht für Bildung und Wissenschaft).

• July 7, 2004. The Declaración de REBIUN en apoyo del modelo de acceso abierto. From Red de Bibliotecas Universitarias españolas (REBUIN). Also see the declaration in Google's English. Also see the same statement attributed to CRUE (Conferencia de Rectores de Universidades Españolas) rather than REBUIN.

• August 28, 2004. The Declaration from Buenos Aires On information, documentation and libraries. From the participants in the First Social Forum on Information, Documentation and Libraries (Buenos Aires, August 26-28, 2004).

• October 11, 2004. The Scottish Declaration of Open Access. From the Scottish Science Information Strategy Working Group. Signed and released on October 11, 2004, but not made official until March 14, 2005.

• November 4, 2004. The Messina Declaration. From 32 Italian university rectors. A statement of Italian university support for the Berlin Declaration.

• November 19, 2004. The Conservation Commons Statement of Principles calling for open access to biodiversity data and knowledge. From third IUCN World Conservation Congress (Bangkok, November 17-25).

2005

• May 15, 2005. Vienna Declaration: 10 Theses on Freedom of Information. From scholars at Vienna's Universitätslehrgang für Informationsrecht und Rechtsinformation.

• September 23, 2005. The Declaration of Salvador - Commitment to Equity and the Salvador Declaration on Open Access: The Developing World Perspective. From participants at the 9th World Congress on Health Information and Libraries, Commitment to Equity (Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, September 20-23, 2005). The first asks governments to promote equitable and open access and the second asks governments to require open access to publicly-funded research.

• December 2, 2005. The São Paolo Declaration in Support of Open Access. From IBICT (Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia). In Portuguese.

2006

• April 25, 2006. The Open media statement of principles. From Ourmedia.

• June 25, 2006. The Rio Declaration on Open Access. From the participants in the iCommons iSummit for 2006 (Rio de Janeiro, June 23-25, 2006).

• September 7, 2006. The Declaration of Riyadh for Free Access to Scientific and Technical Information. In Arabic, French, and English. From participants in the Second Gulf-Maghreb Scientific Congress (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 25-26, 2006).

• October 27, 2006. The Declaration of Mexico, recommending open access policies to Latin American universities and governments. From participants in a Mexico City conference.

• November 22, 2006. The Bangalore National Open Access Policy for Developing Countries. From participants in a conference in Bangalore, India, November 2-3, 2006.

• November 28, 2006. Declaration on open access. From the Council of the Rectors of Portuguese Universities. The English version linked here was released in December 2006.

2007

• February 2007. Alouette Declaration. From AlouetteCanada, the digitization and OA project for Canadian cultural heritage.

• February 28, 2007. Research and the Scholarly Communications Process: Towards Strategic Goals for Public Policy: A Statement of Principles, signed by a combination of friends and foes of OA. From the Research Information Network (RIN).

• May 23, 2007. For better development and just access to knowledge in all forms. A sign-on declaration from the German non-profit Netzwerk Freies Wissen (NFW).

• June 23, 2007. The Kronberg Declaration on the Future of Knowledge Acquisition and Sharing. From the UNESCO High Level Group of Visionaries on Knowledge Acquisition and Sharing.

2008

• January 22nd, 2008. The Cape Town OER Declaration. Originated from a meeting coordinated by the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Shuttleworth Foundation in September 2007. This Declaration lists 2796 international signatories, from both individuals and organizations, promoting access to education via open educational resources.

• January 30, 2008. The Belgorod Declaration on open access to scientific knowledge and cultural heritage on the university area of border regions of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. (Also in Russian.) Also see the action plan accompanying the declaration. (Also in Russian.)

• March 26, 2008. The Atlanta Declaration for the Advancement of the Right of Access to Information. From participants in a global conference at the Carter Center.

• June 16, 2008. The Seoul Declaration. From Civil society organizations participating in the OECD 2008 Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy.

• June 25, 2008. Open Access Erklärung. From the University of Hannover.

• September 25, 2008. Brisbane Declaration. From the participants in the Open Access and Research Conference 2008.

• October 13, 2008. Wheeler Declaration. From the participants in the 2008 Students for Free Culture conference.

• November 2008. New version of the Declaration of Helsinki. Updating the original from 1964. From the World Association of Medical Editors.

2009

• February 1, 2009. The Reclaim The Commons Manifesto. From the participants at the World Social Forum (Belem, Brazil, January 27 - February 1, 2009).

• February 11, 2009. The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship. From a meeting of law library directors at Duke Law School in Durham, North Carolina, in November 2008.

• March 5, 2009. The Kigali Declaration on the Development of an Equitable Information Society in Africa. From representatives of the parliaments of 27 African countries and four intergovernmental organizations.

• May 2, 2009. The Student Statement on The Right to Research. From the American Medical Student Association, Student PIRGs, Students for Free Culture, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, California Institute of Technology Graduate Student Council, and Trinity University Association of Student Representatives.

• May 8, 2009. The Declaration Concept Web Alliance. From the Concept Web Alliance.

• May 8, 2009. The Bamako data sharing code of conduct (first draft). From participants in the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health (Bamako, Mali, November 17-19, 2008).

• June 12, 2009. The Olvio Declaration. From the rectors of 26 Ukrainian universities.

• July 6, 2009. The Amsterdam principles on sharing proteomics data, updating the Bermuda principles (see 1996, above). Arising from a 2008 conference (International Summit on Proteomics Data Release and Sharing Policy, Amsterdam, August 14, 2008), but apparently not published until July 2009.

• September 10, 2009. The Toronto Statement on pre-publication data sharing. From participants in the Toronto International Data Release Workshop (Toronto, May 2009).

• September 10, 2009. The Rome Agenda on data and resource sharing. From participants in the CASIMIR meeting on Data Sharing in Mouse Functional Genomics (Rome, May 20-22, 2009).

• November 6, 2009. The Singapore Declaration on Equitable Access to Health Information in the Western Pacific Region. From the participants in the Joint Meeting of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) and the Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) (Singapore, November 4-5, 2009).

• November 27, 2009. The Manchester Manifesto. From philosopher John Harris, Nobel-winning biologist Sir John Sulston, and 48 others from the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation (iSEI) at The University of Manchester. Also see iSEI's related web site, Who Owns Science?

2010

• January 25, 2010. The Public Domain Manifesto. From Communia.

• February 2010. The CIARD Manifesto: Towards a Knowledge Commons on Agricultural Research for Development. From CIARD (Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development).

• February 19, 2010. The Panton Principles for Open Data in Science. From Peter Murray-Rust, Cameron Neylon, Rufus Pollock, and John Wilbanks. Some background.

• May 14, 2010. The Alhambra Declaration. From the participants in the meeting, Open Access to Science Information: Policies for the development of OA in Southern Europe (Granada, May 12-14, 2010). Also see the announcement (May 28, 2010).

• May 19, 2010. The Manifesto for the Digital Humanities. From the participants in THATCamp (Paris, May 18-19, 2010). Points #9 and #10 call for OA.

• October 27, 2010. Participants at a meeting sponsored by CODATA International and the South African National Research Foundation (Stellenbosch, South Africa on October 24-27, 2010) released the Cape Town Declaration on the importance of open data in research. (Don't confuse this with the Cape Town Open Education Declaration from January 2008, above.)

• November 11, 2010. The Bogotà Declaration. From the institutional partners in Project NECOBELAC (representing six countries in Europe and Latin America), and the participants in a NECOBELAC training course (Curso internacional de formación de capacitadores NECOBELAC, Bogotà, November 9-11, 2010).

2011

• February, 2011. The Ghent Declaration. From four participants at the meeting to launch OpenAIRE (Ghent, December 1, 2010) and released in February 2011. The authors are Gregor Hagedorn, Frederick Friend, Jean-Claude Guédon, and John Willinsky.

• May 23-24, 2011. The Rome Declaration on CRIS and OAR. From the 2nd Workshop on CRIS, CERIF, and Institutional Repositories: Integrating Research Information: CRIS & OAR (Rome, May 23-24, 2011).

• September 8, 2011. The Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest. From participants in the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (Washington D.C. August 25-27, 2011).

• September 2011. The Open Government Declaration from The Open Government Partnership.

2012

• April 11-12, 2012. The Joint Declaration on Open Science for the 21st Century. From ALLEA (All European Academies, The European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities) and The European Commission. "A call to scientific communities and their institutions to make decisive steps towards open science and innovation as a means to accelerate the discovery of solutions for the Grand Societal Challenges."

• May, 2012. The Open Access Understanding. From The Kosson Library Community, Romania.

• May 22, 2012. The Denton Declaration: An Open Data Manifesto. From The University of North Texas.

• June, 2012. The Crimea Open Access Manifesto. From The Crimea International Conference 2012.

• June 22, 2012. The Paris OER (Open Educational Resources) Declaration. From the UNESCO World OER Congress. Calling participating governments to openly license publicly funded educational materials.

• September, 2012. The Aachen Declaration From the Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur Medizinisches Bibliothekswesen (AGMB) (The Annual Meeting of the General Medical Library Association, Germany).

• September 12, 2012. Ten years on from the Budapest Open Access Initiative: setting the default to open. A reaffirmation of the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (above), ten years later, with new recommendations for the next ten years.

• October 26th, 2012. Croatian Open Access Declaration. From the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER) of The University of Zagreb. Presents benefits of open science with an emphasis on preservation and sustainability. Declaration based on Budapest Open Access Initiative, Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, Budapest Declaration on the Right of Access to Information, and IFLA Statement on open access.

• October 22, 2012. Brussels Declaration on Open Access. Signed by Paul Magnette, Ingrid Lieten, and Jean-Marc Nollet as an expansion and reiteration of Belgium's commitment to Open Access for publicly funded research following the country's earlier signing of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in 2007. English and French translations are available here.

2013

• February 6-8, 2013. The Tasman Declaration. From the inaugural New Zealand Australia Open Research Conference.

• June 2013. The Scottish Open Education Declaration. From the Open Scotland Summit. Supports the creation and use of open educational resources in agreement with the 2012 Paris OER Declaration and the European Commissions Opening Up Education Initiative. Declaration derived from the 2012 Paris OER Declaration.

• June 17-18, 2013. G8 Lough Erne Declaration. From the The UK Prime Minister's Office as part of the 2013 G8 Summit.

• 7 August, 2013. Declaration of Transparency For Each Research Article. From the British Medical Journal (BMJ). This editorial by the BMJ calls for every published record to be an unbiased, accurate representation of research to promote access and innovation.

• October 22, 2013. The Declaration on Open Data. From the Global Open Data Initiative. Calls to advance open government data. Blog post announcing the declaration is available here.

2014

• April 7, 2014. The Grey Literature and Policy Development: The Pisa Declaration. From a seminar on open access and grey literature hosted by INIST-CNRS, ISTI-CNE, OpenAIRE, and GreyNet International.

• May, 2014. Independent Peer Review Manifesto. Created by OpenScholar C.I.C.. Manifesto presents strategies toward achieving open peer review. Manifesto is undated, first signatures added May 19th, 2014.

• May 16, 2014. Pisa Declaration on Policy Development for Grey Literature Resources. From a forum in Italy organised by GreyNet. Calls for greater recognition of Grey literature in view of open access to research, open science, innovation, science-based strategies and knowledge transfer.

• May 23, 2014. LIS Open Access Declaration. From Informed, a blog for library and information professionals to discuss information issues. Signatories of the petition pledge to make all of their work open access when possible, in support of the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the IFLA Statement on Open Access to Scholarly Literature and Research Documentation.

• May 30th, 2014. Declaración del Buen Conocer. Contained in book Buen Conocer / FLOK Society, presented at the Buen Conocer Summit in Quinto, Ecuator, in connection to the FLOK Society. Focused on supporting open knowledge in 14 identified areas, including open education, science, culture, and government.

• June 9-12, 2014. Bouchout Declaration. From The Bouchout Declaration for Open Diversity Knowledge Management. Promoting free access to digital data about biodiversity. Sponsored by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme and coordinated by Plazi.

• August, 2014. The Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development. Drafted by IFLA and 600+ strategic partners in the library and development community.This Declaration calls for Member States of the United Nations to make an international commitment to use the Millennium Development Goals and Post-2015 Development Agenda to ensure that everyone has access to information that is necessary to promote sustainable development and democratic societies.

• September 29, 2014. LIBER Statement on Enabling Open Science. From LIBER (the Association of European Research Libraries). Calls for European Commission to take action and support enabling Open Science.

• November 21, 2014. Rome Declaration on Responsible Research and Innovation in Europe. Approved by "the participants and organisers of the conference "Science, Innovation and Society: achieving Responsible Research and Innovation" held in Rome on 19-21 November 2014 under the auspices of the Italian Presidency". Focused on supporting research and innovation, including set of action items and comment on openness of information. Based on 2009 Lund Declaration and 2013 Vilnius Declaration.

• December 9-10, 2014. The Hague Declaration on Knowledge Discovery in the Digital Age. Created by international experts coordinated by LIBER. Declaration includes set of principles and action items supporting information access and knowledge discovery, signed by 766 organizations and individuals. Revision to original declaration scheduled for May 6th, 2016.

2015

• April 23, 2015. Leiden Manifesto for Research Metrics. From experts, Diana Hicks, Paul Wouters, Ludo Waltman, Sarah de Rijcke, and Ismael Rafols. Proposed 10 principles to guide research evaluation. Published in Nature.

• May 19-22, 2015. Incheon Declaration. Adopted by participants of the World Education Forum 2015 hosted in Icheon, South Korea, coordinated by UNESCO, "UNICEF, the World Bank, UNFPA, UNDP, UN Women and UNHCR". Declaration in connection to Education 2030, supporting UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.

• May 23-25, 2015. Qingdao Declaration. From the International Conference on ICT and Post-2015 Education coordinated by UNESCO. Outlines how technology may be used to achieve educational targets for equity, access, quality and lifelong learning in sustainable development goals. Includes three Education 2030 action items for proposed UNESCO review.

• July 1, 2015. Baoding Declaration: Global Consensus in a Digital Age. Addresses findings of the G8 Open Data Charter, including four proposals focusing on the internet and big data to ensure human productivity and the information economy. Published in China Daily.

• September, 2015. International Open Data Charter. By the Open Data Charter's Global Multi-Stakeholder Action Network. Declaration outlines the benefits of open data, including six guiding principles. Adopted by 20 local and national governments, and endorsed by 28 organizations.

• October 20-21, 2015. Daejeon Declaration on Science, Technology, and Innovation Policies for the Global and Digital Age. Created at the OECD Ministerial Meeting in Daejeon, South Korea, coordinated by the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy. Focused on support in the areas of science, technology, and innovation, including support for open science.

• November 9-10, 2015. CLACSO's Declaration on open access to knowledge managed as a commons by the scholarly community. By the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) XXV General Assembly in Medellin, Columbia. Focused on promoting Open Access through set of guiding principles.

• December, 2015. The Lund Declaration 2015. Created at conference Lund Revisited 2015, building on The Lund Declaration 2009. Focused on promoting national and international research and innovation including emphasis on openness and set of priority actions aimed at solving societal issues and challenges.

2016

• March 14, 2016. Dakar Declaration on Open Science in Africa. Declaration "prepared for and signed by the participants to the Sci-GaIA Workshop on “Promoting Open Science in Africa”, to the 2nd TANDEM Workshop and to the WACREN Conference 2016" hosted in Dakar, Senegal. Declaration focused on supporting Open Science in Africa.

• May 13, 2016. Dakar Declaration on Open Access. Declaration published by Electronic Information for Libraries as a part of the Fourth Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) conference on Electronic Publishing. Focused on Open Access Publishing in Africa and the Global South.

• June 15, 2016. The Vienna Principles: A Vision for Scholarly Communication in the 21st Century. Published by the "Open Access and Scholarly Communicaton" working group of the Open Access Network Austria (OANA). Focused on twelve separate open access principles to which the Network has made commitments.

• September 5, 2016. Joint COAR-UNESCO Statement on Open Access. A reassertion of commitment "to advance the Open Access agenda within the broader context of sustainable development through optimal resource sharing" by UNESCO and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR). Declaration focused on reducing costs, supporting smaller institutions and developing countries, and moving away from the international publishing industry.