Spain

Depositing articles in an open access repository in is regulated at a national level by Act17/2022, September 5, which amends 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, 46 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.

In turn, the Act 2/2023, of March 22, of the Spanish University System, establishes in article 12 the Promotion of Open Science and Citizen Science:

1. Scientific knowledge shall be considered a common good. Public Administrations and universities shall actively promote and contribute to Open Science through open access to scientific publications, data, codes and methodologies that guarantee the communication of research, in order to achieve the objectives of responsible research and innovation promoted by the scientific community, as well as the objectives of free circulation of scientific knowledge and technologies promulgated by the European policy of research and technological development.

2. Teaching and research staff must deposit a copy of the final version accepted for publication and the data associated with it in open access institutional or thematic repositories, simultaneously to the date of publication.

3. The digital version of academic publications will be deposited in institutional repositories, without prejudice to other repositories of a thematic or general repositories.

4. The Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the corresponding bodies of the Autonomous Communities, each in its own sphere of action, will promote other initiatives aimed at facilitating free access to data generated by research (open data) and at developing open infrastructures and platforms.

5. Data, understood as those primary sources necessary to validate research results, should follow the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) and, whenever possible, be disseminated in open access.

6. Universities should promote transparency in subscription agreements with scientific publishers.

7. Libraries and other university units will facilitate citizen access to digital and non-digital information resources, as well as the necessary training to promote the dissemination of Open Science in the university community and in society.

8. The state and regional quality agencies will include among their evaluation criteria and requirements the open accessibility of the scientific results of teaching and research staff.

9. The quality agencies will use the institutional repositories as a way of accessing the documentation, in order to guarantee the agility of the evaluation procedures.

10. Citizen Science will be promoted as a field for the generation of shared knowledge between citizens and the university research system. With the aim of promoting scientific, technological, humanistic, artistic and cultural reflection and its application in social challenges, the universities will favor and promote collaboration with social actors, and Public Administrations, especially with the Autonomous Communities and Local Administration.

11. The above will be compatible with the possibility of taking the appropriate measures to protect, prior to scientific publication, the rights over the results of research, development and innovation activity, accordance with National and European regulations on intellectual and industrial property.

Finally, it is worth highlighting the Spanish National Open Science Strategy (ENCA) for the period 2023-2027, which includes all the commitments related to open science adopted by different public agents in the Spanish system, those included in the reform of Act17/2022 on Science, Technology and Innovation approved in September 2022, the Spanish Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2021-2023 and the State Plan for Scientific, Technological Research and Innovation 2021-2022. In addition, it reviews the international and national context in open science.

Main objectives:

  • Ensure the existence of interoperable digital infrastructures that are sufficiently robust and well articulated to absorb the impact of the implementation of a national open science policy and facilitate their integration into the international ecosystem and their integration, where appropriate, into the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
  • Encourage the proper management of research data generated by the national R&D&I system through the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable).
  • Implement open and free access by default to publications and scientific results financed directly or indirectly with public funds, for all citizens.
  • Establish new research evaluation mechanisms and a system of incentives and recognition aimed at promoting open science practices, as well as training all personnel (researcher, manager, funder, evaluator) to align their professional performance with the principles of open science.
  • The Strategy will be implemented through specific measures to ensure the effective involvement, awareness, training and capacity building of the personnel who will be the architects of this cultural change: research personnel, support, management and citizenship. These measures must be adequately coordinated among the agents involved in the financing, execution and evaluation of research activity and supported by the legal framework in force and the action of the Spanish Government as a whole.