One year after the official start, on December 2 – 2010: 126 people gathered for the launch of OpenAIRE in Ghent: the launch of the technical services and the official first appearance of the OpenAIRE network.
The goal: Support the implementation of the EC and ERC Open Access pilot in Europe, via two main objectives:
- The establishment of a participatory European Helpdesk comprised of 27 (now 34) National Open Access Liaison Offices.
- The operation of an e-Infrastructure for depositing and collecting OA publications, linked to administrative project data for the first time. Which today results in an extensive Open Science Graph.
The presence of Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda signaled the strong commitment of the European Commission to support Open Access as part of the free movement of knowledge: “Open access is a legal and technical reality today. The question is no longer ‘if’ we should have open access. The question is about ‘how’ we should develop it further and promote it.”
You can check the video, storyline and article about the 10th anniversary of OpenAIRE here.
Open Access Belgium 