Britt-Marie Wideberg oversees renewals of current licensing agreements and seeks new agreements for publisher/vendor content, open access publishing and research support services for EIFL partner countries. This includes reaching out to publishers/vendors, negotiating pricing, terms and conditions, and analyzing the effectiveness of agreements. Britt-Marie also organizes educational webinars for EIFL-Licensing coordinators and librarians in our partner countries, and develops strategies and activities to raise awareness about licensing agreements and to encourage uptake.

Prior to joining EIFL in 2024, Britt-Marie worked at the National Library of Sweden, coordinating the Bibsam Consortium. The consortium has 95 participating institutions (universities and other higher education institutions, governmental organizations and research institutes) and 45+ agreements for 100 e-resources packages (e-journals, abstracts, indexing databases, reference works and e-books.)

Britt-Marie has also been an active partner in international collaborations, including OA2020, ESAC and SCOAP3.

She holds a degree of Bachelor in Library and Information Science from the University of Borås in Sweden.

Languages: Swedish, English, German

More about the EIFL Licensing Programme

Iryna Kuchma has been managing the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA) since 2008. Working in collaboration with libraries and library consortia in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, she advocates for open access to research results, facilitates the development and implementation of open science policies and infrastructures, and provides support and training.

An expert in open access, open data and open science, Iryna has published several works (see the full list), and contributed to recent reports including ‘Good Practice Advice for Managing Multilingual and non-English Language Content in Repositories’ by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) Task Force on Supporting Multilingualism  and ‘Quality Evaluation Criteria, Best Practices, and Assessment Systems for Institutional Publishing Service Providers’ by the DIAMAS project.

Under Iryna's management, EIFL-OA’s many achievements include the establishment of more than 1,200 open access repositories and more than 4,100 open access journals in EIFL partner countries, opening up a wealth of new knowledge and research to the world. The programme has also supported the development of 189 institutional and 19 national open science policies in EIFL partner countries, and has trained over 307,300 librarians, researchers and policy-makers across the EIFL network. Read more about 20 years of the EIFL Open Access Programme. 

Iryna sits on the boards of Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). In addition, she serves on the advisory board of Open Access Week. Iryna co-chairs the OpenAIRE Training and Support Standing Committee, and is a member of the Coalition Publi.ca International Committee and the DSpace Community Advisory Team. She was an Associate Editor for the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and a member of the DOAJ Council. She served on the UNESCO Open Science Advisory Committee as an international expert, as a Rapporteur for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Skills and Training Working Group, and on the EOSC Association Data stewardship curricula and career paths Task Force.

In 2013, Iryna received the Electronic Publishing Trust (EPT) for Development Annual Award, in recognition of her ‘efforts in the furtherance of open access to scholarly publications in the developing and emerging countries’.

Before joining EIFL, Iryna worked as an Information Programme Manager at the International Renaissance Foundation (part of the Soros Foundations Network in Ukraine) and also coordinated the Arts and Culture Programme there.

Iryna completed the PhD programme at the Institute of Social Sciences, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and has an M.A. in Cultural Studies from the National University ‘Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’, Ukraine.

Languages: English, French, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian

More about the EIFL Open Access Programme

Jevgenija Sevcova joined EIFL in 2016. Her key responsibilities include managing the General Assembly, supporting training and resource development for EIFL licensing coordinators and librarians in EIFL partner countries to ensure widespread adoption and usage of negotiated e-resources, and maintaining records of licensed content.

Jevgenija joined EIFL from the Lithuanian Research Library Consortium, where she works as databases manager and is responsible for projects administration, training, and for supporting Consortium members in ensuring sustained access to licensed content. In addition, Jevgenija provides methodological assistance to Lithuanian public libraries in evaluating, administrating and promoting e-resources.

Jevgenija is active in the field of information literacy. During the project ‘Libraries for Innovation’, she co-authored and published training materials to build library staff and library users’ online information skills. In addition, she provided training on information retrieval for journalism students.

Jevgenija holds an M.A. in Communication and Information from Vilnius University, Lithuania.

Languages: Lithuanian, English, Russian

Ramune Petuchovaite oversees and contributes to development, delivery and evaluation of a range of activities which support piloting innovative public library services that contribute to community development.

Since 2012, Ramune has worked with over 30 public library projects focused on crucial community development needs, such as farming, health, employment, education and social inclusion, in more than 20 developing and transition economy countries. She managed and contributed to the development of a framework for capacity building of public librarians in Africa, and an international leadership programme for young African librarians.

Before joining EIFL, Ramune served as Chief Specialist at the Division of Information Society Development of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. During her term at the Ministry of Culture, a countrywide project, ‘Libraries for Innovation’, was launched. This US$36-million government project, co-funded with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, supported over 1,300 public libraries in Lithuania to launch and improve services offering public access to computers and the internet, and to provide ICT training in communities. The project contributed to a significant increase (15%) in the number of regular internet users in Lithuania in the period 2008-2013. During Ramune’s term as Chief Specialist, the Ministry of Culture initiated changes to library legislation, improving library management and services.

Ramune has also lectured library and information students on library management, project management and other subjects at the Faculty of Communication, Vilnius University.

Ramune holds a library postgraduate degree from Vilnius University, Lithuania.

Languages: English, Lithuanian, Russian

More about the EIFL Public Library Innovation Programme