Spain

Depositing articles in an open access repository in is regulated at a national level by Act14/2011, June 1, for Science, Technology and Innovation, establishes in its article 37 entitled Dissemination in Open Access the following points:

  1. Public agents for the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation System will promote the development of repositories, their own or shared, with open access to the publications of their research staff, and will establish systems that will allow them to be connected with similar initiatives at a national and international level. 

  2. Research personnel whose research activity is financed mainly by general State Budget funds will publish a digital version of the final version of the contents that have been accepted for publication in serial or periodic research publications as soon as possible, but no later than twelve months after the official publication date.

  3. The electronic version will be made public in open access repositories recognised within the field of knowledge in which the research has been developed, or in institutional open access repositories.

  4. The public electronic version may be used by Public Administrations in their evaluation processes.

  5. The Ministry of Science and Innovation will facilitate centralized access to the repositories and their connection with similar national and international initiatives.

  6. The foregoing is understood without prejudicing the agreements by virtue of which the rights over the publications may have been attributed or transferred to third parties, and will not apply when the rights of the results of the research, development and innovation activity may be eligible for protection

This mandate is also included in the Spanish Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation and in the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation.

The Royal Decree 99/2011, of January 28, which regulates official doctoral studies, establishes in its article 14.5 the obligation to deposit approved doctoral theses in open access in the corresponding institutional repository, with some exceptions established in 14.6.

14.5.Once a doctoral thesis has been approved, the university will take charge of its file being in open electronic format in an institutional repository and will send copy of it in electronic format, as well as all the complementary information that may be necessary for the Ministry of Education for the relevant purposes. 

14.6. In exceptional circumstances determined by the academic committee of the programme, such as the participation of companies in the programme or School, the existence of confidentiality agreements with companies or the possibility of generating patents from the content of a thesis, the universities will enable procedures to develop sections 4 and 5 above that will ensure that these aspects are not advertised.

The document “Recommendations for the implementation of article 37; of the Law for Science Technology and Innovation Dissemination in Open Access”, is a practical guide that details the main aspects of the national open access policy, defines the new roles that the different actors must adopt and proposes a series of recommendations aimed at all those involved in the production and management of the scientific information market. The document contains a specific chapter for managers of public funding to R + D one for universities and research centres, another for researchers and finally one for subscribers to scientific journals.

At a regional level, some financing entities, such as the governments of Madrid, Asturias and Catalonia, have also developed open access policies, in accordance with national and EU mandates.

At an institutional level, more and more universities and research institutions are developing their own policies, in the form of institutional statements, recommendations or mandatory requirements, to encourage the adoption of open access practices among their teaching and research staff. Currently, according to ROARMAP data, 44 institutions in Spain have their own open access policy. Most of them encourage open access to publications and do not regulate the deposit of research data.