The 15th Berlin Open Access Conference (B15), with the theme “Adapt and Advance”, was co-hosted by the University of California and the Max Planck Society’s Open Access 2020 Initiative from September 28th – October 1st, 2021. Stakeholders in research and scholarly communication from 46 countries reflected on progress towards transforming subscription-based journal access to open dissemination of research outputs for common benefit. The goals of transformative agreements are twofold: “(1) empower authors to grant free and universal access to their peer-reviewed research while retaining their copyright, and (2) empower institutions to integrate, rationalize and rein in their financial investments in scholarly publishing.”
The Executive Summary of the conference summarizes and outlines action steps for these key takeaways:
- Open access to scholarly journals is essential for progress in science and society.
- Open access is advancing thanks to transformative agreements.
- Negotiations with scholarly journal publishers are a pathway to openness and equity.
- Open access publishing must be enabled under equitable economic conditions.
- Increasing transparency of funding flows and reorganizing just a tiny share of investments can have immeasurable impact.
- Further open access developments require bold new partnerships.
- Scholarly publishers are embracing open access.
- Mature open access strategies include different synergistic approaches.
These issues are more deeply explored in the 4 plenary sessions (with recordings and transcripts provided) and posters. The international scope and collaborative spirit of this conference signal the paths forward towards more open and equitable scholarly exchange.
