The CGIAR consortium announced a roadmap towards achieving the goal of Open Access of its data and information. The CGIAR Consortium produces a wide range of data, knowledge, publications and other information products such as databases, processes and software. The purpose of this roadmap comes after CGIAR approved guidelines that provide a legal framework to Open Access.

Overview of the process leading to this CGIAR Roadmap.

This roadmap comes after a series of activities related to Open Access that were initiated within the CGIAR, these include the:

• Triple A Framework (Availability, Accessibility, and Applicability) – This is a framework that seeks to help the CGIAR centres and programs and their scientist to decide on the level of Availability, Accessibility and Applicability (AAA) they want for their research outputs, and also the pathways with which to turn these outputs into International Public Goods.
• The CGIAR Principles on the Management of Intellectual Assets – This policy provided guidelines on the management of intellectual assets for CGIAR centres. In relation to Open Access two key points emerge from these guidelines; the firstly being a commitment to sharing agricultural research outputs widely and secondly a broad definition of intellectual assets to encompass;- data, databases, knowledge and other information products.
• Open Access Research outputs in agriculture survey (CIARD ,FAO & CGIAR). This worldwide survey amongst researchers in agriculture and related fields carried out in March 2011; which concluded that most researchers were committed into making research output freely and openly available.

Key activities in the roadmap

Against all these developments, the CGIAR roadmap was conceived in a workshop recently held in the consortium offices in Montpellier, France. The following were identified as activities :-

• CGIAR Open Access Policy/Guidelines
• A Plant Breeding Data Management System
• A Spatial Information System
• A Research Project Management System
• CGIAR Knowledge Commons

Taskforces were formed around these activities and it is expected that work on each group that will all cumulate to the CGIAR Open Access Guidelines to submitted to the CGIAR board for approval

For more information see http://www.cgiar.org/consortium-news/a-roadmap-for-moving-cgiar-towards-open-access-a-major-milestone/

You can also learn more about this case study by attending the open access week webinar on AIMS