On October 21st, the 6^th edition of Open Access Week kicks off. This global event is a key opportunity to bring open access to the attention of policy makers, public bodies, researchers, funding organisations, and the general public. Open access to scientific information increases the exchange of knowledge, facilitates the finding of new solutions in medicine, biochemistry, food security, or climate change – to name but a few.

Therefore, OKFN BE is delighted to hear that Flanders’ government department on economy, science and innovation (EWI) plans to find a new way to publish scientific research. In a first step, it is targeting open access to scientific publications, and in a second phase, it also wants to see open scientific data. This is fully in line with the vision of OKFN, so we applaud this decision and we would be happy to join hands with EWI in spreading the open data message.

By promoting open access, EWI will be fully in line with Horizon 2020, the new research framework of the European Union. Under Horizon 2020, results from research funded by EU grants will have to be made available to the public, in order to stimulate the re-use of these results. Horizon 2020 will start in 2014 and has a 70 billion € budget. That’s a lot of research that will be opened up!