CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) through its Network of Libraries joins OLH LPS Model

Posted by Paula Clemente Vega on 1 October 2019

We are extremely pleased to announce that the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has joined the Open Library of Humanities' Library Partnership Subsidy system, becoming the first Spanish institution to join the platform. The CSIC is the largest and leading public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. It plays an essential role within the Spanish System for Science, Technology and Innovation and contributes to reinforce Spain’s position at the international level. The institution is present in all the autonomous regions through their centres across Spain. It comprises 120 centres spread across Spain and is also present in Brussels and Rome. The CSIC has 6% of all the staff dedicated to Research and Development in Spain, and they generate approximately 20% of all scientific production in the country. It also manages a range of important research facilities; among them, the most complete and extensive network of scientific libraries.

The Open Library of Humanities is an academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the platform covers its costs by payments from an international library consortium, rather than any kind of author fee.

Paula Clemente Vega, Marketing Officer for the Open Library of Humanities, said: “We’re very pleased to welcome the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) on board. With this move, the CSIC has become the first Spanish institution to join the Open Library of Humanities’ Library Partnership Subsidy model. Many institutions from all around the world are finding new routes to gold open access. With the help of institutions such as the CSIC, we will continue building a more sustainable open access landscape for the humanities without ever asking authors to pay article processing charges.”   

Agnès Ponsati Obiols, Director of CSIC’s Unit for Information Resources for Research, said: “Since 2008, the CSIC through its network of libraries has committed to making institutional research results open access. This commitment follows two main lines of action: the green path via its institutional repository DIGITAL.CSIC, and the implementation of a Support Programme for fully open access initiatives. In 2019, the CSIC wants to give a new impetus to this initiative by incorporating new agreements diversifying the OA initiatives to cover a multidisciplinary spectrum. The affiliation of the CSIC with the OLH allows us to embrace a new landscape of open access publishing for the CSIC’s humanities and social sciences authors.”


CSIC Libraries and Archives Network press release: Adhesión del CSIC a la Open Library of Humanities para el apoyo a la publicación en acceso abierto (OA)