The policy of open access to the results of scientific research projects, enforced in research and development contracts: the experience of European countries, the USA and its possible implementation in Ukrainе

Abstract

The article analyzes experience of the EU and the USA in implementing the open access policy to the results of scientific researches. There are determined approaches to the formation of a policy of open access during joint projects with the participation of scientific research institutions and Universities, as well as its implementation into the provisions of contracts on research and development, available in Europe and the United States; also, recommendations for implementation of the open access policy in the provisions of contracts for conducting R&D with the participation of Ukrainian scientists are proposed.Statement of the problem: Ukraine, following the countries of Europe and America, is actively implementing the “Open Science” policy, which consists of 3 main elements: open access to publications, open data, and open discussion of the scientific research process and its results. At the same time, a whole list of issues related, in particular, to the functioning of open access to scientific publications and other materials containing the results of scientific research (the absence of an appropriate open access policy in scientific institutions and Universities, legally undefined status of free access licenses according to Ukrainian legislation, etc.). Another issue arises, related to open access to the results of scientific research and development: namely, the appropriate consolidation of the mechanisms of open access to such results of joint international or interdepartmental (interinstitutional) projects in research contracts (hereinafter – Research and Development Contracts (DR Agreements)). The article examines existing open access mechanisms used by scientists and researchers in European countries, mechanisms established at the EU level in the Framework Program for Scientific Research “Horizon Europe”, and also examines the experience of the USA (the level of federal institutions and the practice of universities). Recommendations are offered on setting out an open access policy when concluding DR contracts with Ukrainian and foreign partners.Results of the analysis of scientific publications. The study of the foreign practice of implementing open science, and, in particular, the policy of open access to scientific publications is quite active in Ukraine, but it is of interest to specialists, mainly, as an example for the implementation of such a policy in their research institutes, scientific publishing houses, higher educational institutions. Accordingly, the vast majority of domestic publications on this subject contain the exposition of the open access policy of institutions in Europe and the USA, as well as the definition of such policy in international documents (Didenko Y., Egorov I., ), some publications are devoted to a certain criticism of the process of implementing open access in Ukraine (articles by Yaroshenko T., Haustov V., Hryga V., Ryzhenko Yu.). At the same time, attention is paid to the only aspect – the successive steps of fulfilling the conditions of free access to scientific publications. Other significant aspects of the implementation of free access, namely, the combination of requirements for open access to the results of scientific research and their patent protection, and the legal consolidation of the open access policy of scientific institutions in contracts for conducting scientific research and development with partners and customers have not been clarified by the Ukrainian legal scholars (although certain works in this field have been published and related to the use of Creative Commons open access licenses when using scientific journals, book editions placed in the electronic environment by leading publishing houses (articles by Y.M. Kapitsa, K.S. Shahbazyan), the issue of copyright protection and detection of plagiarism (publications by V. Trotska, K. Shahbazyan, O. Sobin, O. Golikova, O. Samelyuk).