Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: Chile joins the international movement on Open Access
To advance in this line, ANID signs its first memorandum of understanding with public and private universities in the country, which together with the CINCEL Corporation, will support the implementation of an Open Access Policy for Chile.
Open science, knowledge as a public good and open access to scientific data and information are concepts that have gradually become established in the scientific and technological world. This is reflected in the growing interest that science positively impacts the well-being of all and that the knowledge generated through public funds is a public good, open to all, and usable by all.
Advancing in this logic is a challenge that other countries have already embarked on and that transcends the scientific world, also encompassing museums, libraries, cultural creations, among others. Chile is no stranger to this movement, that is why and as part of the Open Access week worldwide, the first Memorandum of Understanding was signed between ANID , the CINCEL Corporation – Consortium for Access to Electronic Scientific Information-, and private and public universities in the country, to create a support network, which seeks to promote collaborative work and the articulation of its participants, to strengthen a National Infrastructure for Access to Scientific Information. This seeks to allow and ensure open access to scientific knowledge, enhance installed technical capacities, increase the visibility of research results and provide services of national scope with world-class standards.
“We signed an Agreement of Understanding with the country’s public and private universities, which seeks to generate a support network for the national infrastructure for access to scientific knowledge – Aisén Etcheverry, National Director of ANID.
The memorandum of understanding establishes the bases of the support network for this infrastructure, and defines the rights and responsibilities of the members in its operation. Therefore, by signing, all parties acknowledge that the sustainable success of this initiative in the long term is a shared responsibility and depends on the fulfillment of the obligations and commitments indicated in it.
“Today we had a very important activity for the Agency, where we signed an Agreement of Understanding with the country’s public and private universities, which seeks to generate a support network for the national infrastructure for access to scientific knowledge. It seeks to facilitate that the knowledge generated with the agency’s funds is available to citizens, is available to researchers and thus contributes in a better way to the development of the country ”, comments Aisén Etcheverry, National Director of ANID.
For his part, for Ignacio Sánchez, president of the CINCEL Corporation, rector of the Catholic University and Alternate Executive Vice President of the Council of Rectors of the Chilean University, CRUCH, “we are permanently working to be able to deliver this scientific knowledge to all the institutions of the country . CINCEL has a group of highly committed professionals and administrators, it is a small group that works hard, very in contact with ANID, with the Ministry and with all the universities in the country. The objective is then to make scientific knowledge available to all and all institutions ”.
“CINCEL has a group of highly committed professionals and administrators, it is a small group, but one that works hard, closely in contact with ANID, with the Ministry and with all the universities in the country. The objective is then to make available to all institutions, scientific knowledge “- rector Ignacio Sánchez, president of the CINCEL Corporation, and Alternate Executive Vice President of CRUCH.
Juan Manuel Zolezzi, Executive Vice President of the Council of Rectors of the Chilean Universities CRUCH, and rector of the University of Santiago de Chile , comments that “in general, financing research, knowledge with public funds, should have only a small bias, it should be slightly oriented to the country’s problems, let’s say, effectively the problems that we have to solve as a society, as Chileans, for the common good, and in that the State has to have a commitment ”.
For Cristián Nazer, president of the Corporation of Private Universities CUP, and rector of the Finis Terrae University, “there is an important challenge on the part of our libraries, to make access to that information, access to that knowledge and in a way that is understandable for the whole public, that whoever wants to know something about a specific topic, it is relatively easy to get to it ”.