Open access and open licensing by Russian journals

Abstract

In the circumstances of transforming institution of intellectual property, the journals have to find balance between the open science initiatives and legal regulations. The purpose of the study is to define whether Russian academic journals conform to open science initiatives and, in particular, to the open access principles and open licensing terms. The author discusses the findings of the study encompassing 450 journals in the Russian Science Citation Index database (as of December 1, 2022) using the following criteria: journal allocation site, archive depth, access principle, license terms and the website section on licensing terms. Based on the obtained data systematization and analysis, the trends for Russian academic journals are formulated: in general, they are ready for introducing open access principles. By choosing open licensing, most of the Russian academic journals are ready to offer maximum freedom in using their publications. The author developed several recommendations for the journals as the sites of scientific data exchange, and for the researchers as the users, generators and disseminators of these data.