The presentation identified the current barriers to opening access faced by the CGIAR consortium. Despite these institutional barriers,the positive developments in the general Open Access and Open Data environment were summarised (cited examples included the growing Open government data and the shift by funders and international institutions towards open access, such as - DFID , World Bank, UNESCO, NIH, and Wellcome Trust). The key activities that led the consortium towards this experience included the CGIAR Principles on Management of Intellectual Assets, which provided a good legal framework and enabling environment. This policy recognised the CGIAR research outputs (including data and data sets) as international public goods. The Tripple A framework (Availability, Accessibility and Applicability of the CGIAR Research Outputs) provided a strategy of making CGIAR research available widely.