Currently the company hosting the OpenCon 2015 website is experiencing technical difficulties, resulting in the OpenCon 2015 website downtime.
Until this is resolved, please use this page to apply for OpenCon but do not promote it as the main link to apply.
In conjunction with this year’s Berlin 11 Open Access meeting, the Max Planck Society and Right to Research Coalition will host the first-ever satellite conference to the Berlin conference series specifically for students and early stage researchers on November 18th in Berlin, Germany.
The meeting will convene approximately 85 students and early stage researchers for intimate discussions with leading figures in the Open Access movement, including researchers, publishers, policymakers, advocates, and — most importantly — students themselves. With generous support from the Max Planck Society, the registration fee will only be €20 and a large portion of the participants will have access to travel scholarships to cover all or part of their transportation and accommodation expenses.
Apply now to attend the Berlin 11 Satellite Conference for Students & Early Stage Researchers!
Event Date: November 18, 2013
Application Deadline: October 14, 2013
Location: The New Malthouse in Berlin, Germany
The meeting will include presentations from:
Jack Andraka, Winner 2012 Intel Science Fair & 16-year-old inventor of breakthrough cancer diagnostic
Alek Tarkowski, co-founder and Public Lead of Creative Commons Poland and former member of the Board of Strategic Advisors to the Prime Minister of Poland
Cameron Neylon, Director of Advocacy for the Public Library of Science (PLOS)
Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC and closing keynote of Berlin 10
See our complete list of confirmed speakers, with more added each week!
This new satellite conference reflects the importance of students and early stage researchers as the next generation of scholars and the impact these groups are already having in opening up scholarly communication. The agenda will be specifically tailored to the position of students and early stage researchers within the scholarly communication system. It will address both the power these groups have to create change as well as the challenges early-career researchers face from a scholarly publishing system in transition.
Given the intimate size of the meeting, those interested in attending will need to submit a short application, and accepted applicants will be sent a link to register. The application also includes the opportunity to request a travel scholarship, if needed. The application process will help to ensure we have a diverse, representative, and active group of participants for this unique meeting. All applications must be received before midnight EST on October 14, 2013.
Fill in our short application to attend the Berlin 11 Satellite Conference!
For more information, see our page on conference details.
Jack Andraka perfectly illustrates the power of free, online access to scientific and scholarly research articles, a concept called Open Access. Yet, even though taxpayers fund much of the published research, most scientific papers are locked behind expensive paywalls that can cost $30 per article or thousands of dollars per journal subscription. These prices are so high that students like Jack — and even top researchers — often have to go without the benefit of cutting edge information in their field.
Fortunately, Jack and others are advocating for a solution, called the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (or FASTR). FASTR is a bipartisan bill that would require research articles funded by taxpayers to be made freely available online within six months. This bill would help both students like Jack and established researchers alike to gain access to the articles they need to discover the next breakthrough, accelerate scientific advancement, and improve the lives of people all around the world, while generating economic and job growth.
Fill in the form below to send a letter to your legislators in Congress urging them to pass FASTR and help gifted researchers like Jack get access to the articles they’ll need to make the next big discovery!
Note: after you click take action, you will have the chance to review the letters before they are sent.
If the form below does appear properly on your device, follow this link directly to our action center.
Join us on Tuesday, October 22nd at 12pm EDT (9am PDT / 6pm CEST) for a live webcast discussion with Juan Pablo Alperin, a PhD candidate at the Stanford School of Education who spearheaded a successful campaign to pass the first open access policy specifically for graduate students. You can read the full text of the Stanford policy here.
In a strong showing of support for Open Access, the policy was approved by the student body in a nearly unanimous vote, with more than 95% of votes cast in favor and 59% of students participating in the vote. Juan will provide an introduction to the policy itself as well as the strategies and tactics he used to build support for the policy before it was put to a vote. The webcast should help equip students (and those interested in working with students) with the basics for replicating the Stanford graduate student open access policy on their campus.
To join the webcast, log on to http://bit.ly/nextgenoapolicy at 12pm EST (9am PDT / 6pm CEST) on Tuesday, October 22nd.
Juan Pablo Alperin, Stanford School of Education
Juan Pablo Alperin is a doctoral student in the Stanford School of Education as well as a researcher and systems developer with the Public Knowledge Project. He holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and a Masters in Geography from the University of Waterloo, Canada. In the last five years, Juan has delivered workshops for journal editors all over Latin America with a focus on promoting Open Access to scholarship, has been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences on scholarly publishing, continues to work on the award-winning software Open Journal Systems (OJS), and was the lead developer on the recently released Open Monograph Press (OMP). While at Stanford, Juan is focused on understanding the effects of Open Access in Latin America, where over 90% of research is made freely available to the public.
Registration for the General Assembly is now open! Registration is required to attend the GA, and you can register by visiting our registration page.
The Right to Research Coalition will host its second General Assembly this summer from August 2nd through 4th in Budapest at the European Youth Centre. The meeting will convene leaders of student organizations from around the world to chart the future of student efforts promoting Open Access.
Date and location: August 2nd through the 4th at the European Youth Center in Budapest, Hungary. Participants are encouraged to arrive at the venue by 1:00pm on the 2nd as the meeting will begin in the early afternoon of that day. Likewise, participants should try to depart Budapest in the late afternoon of the 4th (after 3:00pm) as there will be morning sessions on the last day.
Who should attend? All Right to Research Coalition members are encouraged to send one to two delegates to the General Assembly; however, a number of additional slots will likely be available for organizations interested in sending more delegates. Please contact nick [at] arl [dot] org if your organization is interested in sending more delegates and hasn’t already made arrangements to do so.
Cost: The suggested participation fee is $145 (approximately €110) and will cover full room and board. If your organization cannot cover the fee on your behalf, there is an option to waive the fee at registration. We don’t expect individual participants to cover this fee out of pocket.
Funding assistance: Attendees are asked to cover as much of their own expenses as possible (including travel costs and the participation fee); however, we don’t want cost to discourage members from attending the GA, so the Right to Research Coalition will have funding available as a supplement for those who require it. To request funding assistance, please get in contact with us by sending an email to nick [at] arl [dot] org.
Program and speakers: The program and speakers will be confirmed over the coming weeks. Sessions will cover topics such as national and international Open Access advocacy, campus advocacy, best practices on engagement and peer-to-peer education, working with professional societies, Open Access Week 2013, and more. After you’ve registered, you will receive an email once the program is announced.
Format: Our goal at the General Assembly is to foster discussion among the coalition members, share success stories and ideas, and build a vision for the future role of students in making Open Access a reality. As such, most of the sessions will be discussion-based with a panel seeding the conversation. Also, the meeting will be limited to a smaller number of participants to allow for more effective discussion, so expect to know everyone by the end of the GA!
The schedule and agenda for the General Assembly will be decided by a small programming committee of R2RC members. Once confirmed, the program for the GA will be posted here and emailed to all the participants. To propose workshops or topics to be covered, email nick [at] arl [dot] org.
Venue: The meeting and accommodations will be at the European Youth Centre Budapest, located at 1024 Budapest, Zivatar utca 1-3. Hungary.
View The Right to Research Coalition General Assembly 2012 in a larger map
Travel to and from the European Youth Centre: you can find directions for how to get to and from the GA conference venue on the Europe Youth Centre’s website. You will have to arrange your own travel to and from the meeting; however, the EYC is centrally located and easily accessible by public transportation.
Emergency Contact: If you have any urgent problems, you can reach the coalition’s director and meeting organizer at any time at +1 615 400 1449. For less urgent matters, he can be reached at nick [at] arl [dot] org.