Make publications open access available

Katell Lavéant participated in the pilot ‘You share, we take care!’ Based on article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, the publishers' versions of short scientific works can be made available after six months via the university repository.

I decided to participate in the pilot because I have always followed the developments in open access publishing with more than usual interest: for me as a researcher and project leader in a NWO programme, it is crucial to have as many of my publications open access available as fast as possible. Moreover, I noticed that in their work my fellow-researchers not always referred to my latest publications, because they were not yet available in open access. In this way I hope that the most recent developments in my work and my discipline can be read and used much quicker by other researchers.

I am a great fan of ‘slow science’, but there is something to be said for ‘fast publishing’ as well.

Sharing my publications via the repository was very easy. It was no trouble at all to send my publications to library staff, as far as they themselves had not already found my work in repositories and on publishers’ websites.

By sharing on social media that all my publications were open access available in the Utrecht University Repository,  my research immediately attracted more attention.