Co-hosted by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), the meeting will offer a thought-provoking program with dynamic speakers from around the world to discuss the opportunities and challenges for libraries in a world of open science and open content, provide a valuable opportunity for participants to make connections, and learn best practices from colleagues around the world.

The conference is deliberately structured to deliver both an overview of the most important policy and philosophical developments as well as pragmatic sessions to help participants become more effective in their roles on a day-to-day basis. Featured keynote speakers include:

1. John Wilbanks, Chief Commons Officer, Sage Bionetworks
​2. Dominique Babini, Coordinator of Open Access Projects, CLACSO

The intended audience for the conference are library directors, librarians and repository managers, researchers, university administrators, funding agencies, and students.

Please visit the SPARC and COAR websites for more details.

EIFL Open Access Programme Manager Iryna Kuchma and EIFL Open Access Programme Coordinator Gwen Franck will facilitate one of the Breakfast Club Meetings (on training) and Iryna Kuchma will also provide an overview of the FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) project at joint COAR/SPARC Workshop: “Librarians Skills and Competencies”.

BACKGROUND 

EIFL is one of founding members of COAR, which represents more than 90 institutions worldwide (Europe, Asia, Latin America, the U.S. and Canada).