Starting from July 2013, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will make hundreds of digital publications available to millions of people around the world free-of-charge with an open license, making UNESCO the first member of the United Nations (UN) to adopt an Open Access policy for its publications.

Janis Karklins, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, announced the new policy during the opening of the World Summit on the Information Society Forum in Geneva on 13 May 2013. This Open Access policy will apply to all new UNESCO publications. UNESCO is still working on applying this policy retroactively, that is, to works already published.

By adopting this new publishing policy, UNESCO aligns its practice to its advocacy work in favor of Open Access and strengthens its commitment to the universal access to information and knowledge. The new publishing policy is in line with UNESCO’s Open Access to Scientific Information Strategy and its main components as well as its work on Open Educational Resources and Free and Open Source Software.

The full text of the policy is available on UNESCO website at: www.unesco.org/new/en/openaccesspolicy

Source:UNESCO