The ORION project was presented at the national KRECon 2019 (Knowledge, Research and Education) conference on 7-8 November in Prague. The conference reflected on the recent development of Open Science in the Czech Republic and was dedicated to one of the main topics of contemporary scholarly communication, the issue of Open Access to scientific information.
Open Access is now a shared vision of the world’s academic communities, research councils and funding bodies. On 29 April 2019, the Czech Government approved the Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Strategy of the Czech Republic’s Open Access to Scientific Information for 2017–2020. Czech scientists will be obliged to publish in Open Access mode in the near future.
The aim of the KRECon conference was to bring the issue of OA closer to Czech scientists, higher education management, early career researchers and senior staff of universities and research organizations. During the first day, foreign top-level guests described the situation in other European countries and reflected on the advantages and drawbacks of different scenarios. On the second day, the conference aimed at taking a closer look on the Open Access movement in Czech Republic and its implementation possibilities. What does it mean for Czech scientists, what are the benefits, disadvantages and possible difficulties? The ORION Open Science project with its Czech partners, CEITEC and JCMM, can be seen as contribution to improving the Czech science scene.
The KRECon Conference was organized by the Czech National Library of Technology (NTK) and National Centre for Electronic Information Resources (CzechELib) in cooperation with Eurodoc.