Declaration on non-commercial open access to knowledge in times of COVID-19

Scientific knowledge in Latin America has historically been open. Non-profit scientific communication does not only open access in times of crisis!

The current global health emergency has revealed the urgent need for unrestricted access to scientific knowledge, as this contributes substantially to developing vaccines, improving treatments, and designing public policies in the midst of a pandemic.

It is essential to reflect not only on the importance of opening up knowledge, but also on the context and strategies with which this is done, in the search for a sustainable phenomenon that does not generate new exclusions in other phases of science communication.  

The University of Arizona advises that, in response to the unprecedented and rapidly changing circumstances related to the Coronavirus outbreak, several publishers of academic textbooks and e-books have temporarily opened access to their otherwise restricted materials. Much of this material is available temporarily. Open Access to this content is not expected to be permanent (unless it involves publications or open educational materials that have always been available in this way).

Some of the responses from publishing companies are along the following lines: 

SAGE Publishing 's statement regarding COVID-19 includes the following action: "We have removed the subscription gateway to articles that we believe will be of value to researchers and practitioners at this time."

Springer Nature 's response states: “Springer Nature is committed to supporting the global response to COVID-19 by providing rapid and direct access to the latest available research, evidence, and data.” Springer has made more than 19,000 articles and book chapters freely available and, among other actions, has published more than 490 new articles on COVID-19.

For its part, Taylor & Francis states: “In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor & Francis is providing free access to relevant research articles to support the global effort to diagnose, treat, and prevent COVID-19.”

Similarly, Elsevier and Wiley granted “full access” to a collection of resources related to Coronavirus and COVID-19. It should be noted that Elsevier's portal, called Coronavirus Research Hub , states that it will only be open until October 28, 2020.

The growing openness of commercial publishers only serves to demonstrate that Open Access, as Murray mentions , saves lives. So , what about other diseases? Isn't the primary goal of science the development of humanity and saving lives? What about other societal ailments that can be addressed with scientific knowledge? Is there any rational justification for not opening access to knowledge or for opening it only temporarily? On what basis, and by whom, are the findings decided? Who has the power to make them available?

In times of crisis like the one we are experiencing with the COVID-19 pandemic, information for making sound decisions is crucial. It's not just about providing timely responses, defining relevant public policies, and resolving management problems immediately, but also about accessing the knowledge and data that are created and updated daily to form the scientific body of knowledge applicable by experts in communities, clinics, and healthcare facilities in general, as well as by national and local governments. 

Having open access to medical information is just as important as knowing what's happening and what scientific studies are helping us understand society during these times. Understanding and analyzing how societies behave in the face of this unusual situation is also a form of science that benefits society.

The Latin American region has distinguished itself for decades by keeping scientific communication anchored in academia, through scientific journals published by educational institutions, research centers, and universities. Platforms such as Redalyc , Latindex , SciELO , and more recently AmeliCA , have contributed to the sustainability, visibility, and consolidation of the regional non-commercial Open Access system for journals published in the region.

The journals in our region do not open their content only in emergencies; they do so always, indiscriminately and permanently, from a vision towards the democratization of knowledge whose beneficiaries are not only readers and researchers in the region, but the general public. 

This availability is what can make it possible to contextualize public policies in Latin American countries, leading to solving the most pressing effects of COVID-19 and finding appropriate solutions, as some countries like Costa Rica and Argentina are doing in the field of medicine.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, journals and platforms have reaffirmed their commitment to open access. Redalyc and AmeliCA have organized all the knowledge related to epidemics, COVID-19, and Coronavirus from Open Access articles in the journals indexed by Redalyc ( available here ) to help researchers uncover the fabric of this knowledge. This is achieved through a specialized search engine and an open dataset in Linked Open Data format , which contains 6,737 scientific articles from 27,336 authors in 65 countries. Another example is the creation of the coronavirus collection within the regional health repository (Virtual Health Library - PAHO, WHO-BIREME) and the Social Observatory of Coronavirus created by CLACSO.

This period of emergency should lead us to consider how to strengthen our infrastructure and publications, increase their visibility, and sustain their non-profit nature. We call on governments and institutions to continue and reinforce their support for non-commercial publications. This aligns well with initiatives such as InvestInOpen , which calls for investment in non-commercial open infrastructure, and SCOSS (The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services), a coalition of funders seeking crowdfunding investment in Open Access and Open Science infrastructure.

Latindex , Redalyc , CLACSO, and IBICT assert that Non-Commercial Open Access and the infrastructure that supports it are meaningless without protective mechanisms. They have launched the “Mexico Declaration in Favor of the Latin American Non-Commercial Open Access Ecosystem ,” a joint statement on the use of the CC BY-NC-SA license “to guarantee the protection of open access academic and scientific output.” Furthermore, they acknowledge that Non-Commercial Open Access cannot be strengthened without modifying current evaluation systems and adhering to the “San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) .”

Our CLACSO Working Group, Open Knowledge as a Common Good , made up of 28 researchers from 13 institutions in 9 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico and Uruguay), considers it urgent to focus the efforts of the scientific community on collaboration and strengthening non-commercial, academically directed Open Access. Only in this way can we guarantee that the control, direction and interests of Open Access are those of the academic community and not those of commercial corporations; only in this way can we achieve total Open Access without costs for reading or publishing.

However, this is not new news, as our call for open knowledge stems from a reflective and analytical stance we have adopted in Latin America for decades, always based on the region's experience and the best traditions of sharing our resources. Undoubtedly, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fractures in the commercial publishing system and its power, but also the needs of the Latin American region to achieve the future sustainability of its Open Access ecosystem.

June 9, 2020
CLACSO Working Group
Open knowledge as a common good

This statement expresses the position of the Open Knowledge as a Common Good Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.

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