EIFL will be celebrating international Open Access Week 2024 with libraries, researchers and students in our partner countries. Open Access Week 2024 will continue the 2023 call to put ‘Community over Commercialization’ and prioritize approaches to open scholarship that serve the best interests of the public and the academic community. 

Open Access Week is an annual, global event established by SPARC to raise awareness about open access and to call for open access to be the norm in scholarship and research. Iryna Kuchma, Manager of the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA), is a member of the Open Access Week Advisory Committee.

EIFL and EIFL partners have organized or will be taking part in several events - 

21 October 

• 3rd Annual Forum 2024 for Open Research in MENA, hosted by Qatar National Library with continued support and funding from the Knowledge E Foundation. The theme is 'Transforming Knowledge Into Action'. Iryna Kuchma, EIFL-OA Manager, will speak about the quality and sustainability of no fee open access publishing with a case study from North Africa, featured in the EIFL landscape study of no-fee open access publishing in Africa. 
• Unlocking Knowledge: Perspectives on Open Science, an online event for researchers, PhD students and anyone interested in open science organized by the Kaunas University of Technology Library, Lithuania. Milica Ševkušić, EIFL-OA Project Coordinator, will speak about elevating research with open science practices. 

22 October 

• Echanges autour de la Recommandation de l’UNESCO sur la science ouverte at Université Amadou Mahtar Mbow, Senegal, a seminar organized by Awa Diouf Cisse, EIFL Copyright Coordinator in Senegal.
• Open access webinar organized by Midlands State University Library in Gweru, Zimbabwe. Milica Ševkušić, EIFL-OA Project Coordinator, will talk about open access publishing and its advantages.
• Building a regional knowledge ecosystem organized by the School of Pharmacy, University of Ghana, and the Department of Education at Oxford University. Dr. Richard Bruce Lamptey, Deputy University Librarian, KNUST and EIFL Country coordinator in Ghana will talk about open access and sustainable funding modules for African Journals featuring the EIFL landscape study of no-fee open access publishing in Africa. 
• Open Access Event organized by the University of Pretoria and UNISA (South Africa). Ina Smith, Planning Manager, ASSAf, will talk about Diamond open access to scholarly journals as a catalyst for policy change featuring the EIFL landscape study of no-fee open access publishing in Africa. 

23 October 

• Equitable knowledge sharing: a webinar on how open access supports wider dissemination of research, the role of AI in research, and open access and Diamond open access publishing. The webinar is organized by Rosebank College Cape Town, South Africa. Iryna Kuchma, EIFL-OA Manager, and Milica Ševkušić, EIFL-OA Project Coordinator, will facilitate the webinar.
• Open access book publishing: Infrastructure solutions and reflections, an online discussion hosted by EIFL in collaboration with SUPRR (Supporting Ukrainian Publishing Resilience and Recovery) and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
• Strength through collaboration in Diamond Open Access publishing, a webinar organized by the DIAMAS project. EIFL is a partner in the DIAMAS project. 

24 October 

• ІІІ International Conference Open Science and Innovation in Ukraine 2024 #OSICU2024, an online event organized by The State Scientific and Technical Library of Ukraine, in collaboration with TIB - Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology University Library, and with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Iryna Kuchma, EIFL-OA Manager, will provide updates on open access journal publishing.

25 October

• Why open access matters and benefits of open access to the researchers and community, organized by Africa University Library, Zimbabwe. Iryna Kuchma, EIFL-OA Manager, will facilitate this webinar.
• Training on the application of open science principles in practice across various scientific disciplines, at the University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The training is part of the conference ‘Open Science and Intellectual Property Protection’, organized within the Horizon Europe POLICY ANSWERS project. Milica Ševkušić, EIFL-OA Project Coordinator, will facilitate the training and will also meet with journal editors and the staff of the publishing unit at the University of Banja Luka.