Parallel Session 1 – Practising Openness I
Date: Wednesday, 1 July 2026, from 11:00 to 12:30
Moderator: TBC
Location: R2
1.1) Implementing Rights Retention: A Shared Model for Finnish Universities and Its Broader Potential
Presenters: Susanna Nykyri, Tampere University, Finland; Tua Hindersson-Söderholm, Aalto University, Finland
Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) has emerged as a key mechanism to ensure immediate and sustainable open access to scholarly publications and strengthen knowledge security. It enables researchers to retain sufficient rights to share their work openly, regardless of publisher restrictions, and aligns with European open science policies and Plan S requirements
In Finland, universities have taken a proactive role in implementing RRS, based on the university libraries’ initiative. Through the Finnish University Library Network, they developed a shared approach tailored to the needs of university researchers. This collaborative model is not a national policy for all higher education institutions, but it serves as a strong example that can be extended to other sectors, such as universities of applied sciences and research institutes. By focusing on legal clarity, researcher support, and practical implementation, the model demonstrates how libraries can lead systemic change in scholarly communication.
This case study presentation will explore the journey from concept to practice, highlighting the following aspects:
– Motivation and drivers behind adopting RRS in Finnish universities, including compliance with funder mandates, commitment to open science and strengthening academic freedom as well as the position of evidence-based knowledge in society.
– Libraries as advocates and change agents, providing expertise in copyright, licensing, sustainable open access and knowledge security.
– Development process and stakeholder engagement, from initial discussions to consensus-building among universities.
– Practical solutions, such as researcher guidance materials and communication strategies to ensure uptake.
– Challenges and lessons learned, including addressing librarian and researcher concerns, and harmonizing practices across institutions.
The Finnish experience offers valuable insights for institutions across Europe. It demonstrates that a coordinated, university-led approach can overcome legal and cultural barriers, foster researcher trust, and create a sustainable framework for rights retention. While the model was designed for universities, its principles—collaboration, clarity, and practicality—are transferable to diverse contexts.
By sharing this case, we aim to inspire libraries and consortia to consider similar strategies, adapt best practices, and collaborate internationally. Participants will gain:
- A clear understanding of how RRS can be implemented at institutional or consortia level.
- Practical examples of tools and workflows that support researchers effectively.
- Lessons learned help anticipate challenges and build stronger advocacy.
Ultimately, this presentation contributes to the broader conversation on how libraries can lead in shaping equitable and open scholarly ecosystems. The Finnish route to RRS illustrates that systemic change is possible when institutions work together—and that such change can ripple beyond universities to strengthen open access across the entire research landscape.
This presentation will provide actionable insights for libraries and consortia seeking to strengthen their role in strengthening knowledge security, open access policy implementation and researcher support.
Key Takeaways
- Learn how Finnish universities implemented a shared Rights Retention Strategy model through library-led collaboration.
- Discover practical tools, workflows, and advocacy approaches that support researchers effectively.
- Gain transferable insights to adapt RRS strategies in your own institutional or national context.
1.2) Rights Retention and Secondary Publication Rights in Germany: Status Quo, Challenges, and Perspectives
Presenter: Marc Lange, Helmholtz Association, Germany
There is consensus in academia and among the majority of research funders that scientific publications should be freely accessible (open access). Likewise, scientists have an interest in reusing their own works as freely as possible and secure use rights when publishing their research results. Despite steadily increasing open access rates over the last years – not only, but primarily, due to large-scale agreements with major publishers, and to a lesser degree the use of secondary publication rights (green open access) –, the open access transformation is yet not fully achieved. A major practical obstacle is the transfer of copyright or exclusive use rights to publishers, which remains standard practice in scholarly publishing. As a result, immediate public access to publications is regularly prevented, researchers‘ reuse of their own works is severely restricted, and the implementation of open accessstrategies at the institutional and national levels is limited, altogether limiting access to knowledge. Hence, one important concern is solutions for researchers to secure sufficient rights in their scientific works. This is subsumed under the term rights retention. The most promising approach is rights retention strategies, which refer to policies and related services provided by research funding bodies and research performing organizations that are designed to support authors in enforcing rights retention provisions, and in particular, free them from the need of individual negotiations with publishers. Rights retention is gaining relevance in international discourse, not least from experience with so-called transformative agreements with major publishers, which have failed to satisfactorily achieve an actual open access transformation. Still, especially institutional rights retention policies (whereby researchers transfer all or some use rights to their scientific institutions, thereby preventing future transfer of exclusive use rights) have so far been implemented almost exclusively in the United States and the United Kingdom. However, further European countries are testing the waters and national initiatives have been spurred by cross-country studies and community building, for example by Project Retain and the European Rights Retention Community of Practice (e.g.as presented at LIBER Conference 2025).
This talk will focus on the situation in Germany and discuss the country’s current landscape and emerging directions regarding rights retention. Despite the considerable attention the introduction of a secondary publication right in the German Copyright Act in 2014 received from the national open science community, it has since not substantially advanced discussions on expanding openness-enabling (copyright) regulations or instruments, such as rights retention, and as of 2025 no comprehensive rights retention strategy exists in Germany. Nonetheless, a number of stakeholders are on track towards rights retention strategies, such as funders and institutions taking it into consideration as funding requirements or in their open science policies, respectively. E.g., the Helmholtz Association intends to examine implementing rights retention strategies as part of several measures of their Memorandum on the Open Access Transformation at the Helmholtz Association. Moreover, in 2026 the Helmholtz Open Science Office has commenced activities on furthering rights retention in Germany as part of open-access.network, a project and platform providing comprehensive information and resources on open access (currently funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space). In the presentation, we will first outline current rights retention initiatives in Germany and then place them within a broader transnational context, examining how rights retention interacts with existing secondary publication rights, the differing legal and copyright frameworks across Europe, and the practical challenges of implementation. We will highlight key issues relevant for European research libraries: aligning legal frameworks, institutional policies, and researcher services so that rights retention and secondary publication can effectively support a transition to comprehensive open access.
1.3) Negotiating Openness of Publication Metadata – A Joint Task Force
Presenters: Bianca Kramer, Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information, The Netherlands; Colleen Campbell, OA2020
Key research information – such as publication metadata, citation counts, and funding information – is often locked behind paywalls, creating a “black box” that limits transparency, and accountability. These closed systems influence researcher careers and funding decisions without clear scrutiny or reproducibility.
For negotiators, understanding the power of truly open research information – freely accessible, reusable, and transparent data on research outputs and impact – is crucial for shaping a fair, transparent and sustainable open accessecosystem. Open metadata is relevant to many use cases for libraries and library consortia, including preparing for negotiations, assessing the success of publisher agreements, and providing reports to parent institutions and member libraries.
As a next step to advance the openness of metadata, the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information and OA2020 have established a Joint Task Force on Negotiating Openness of Publication Metadata, which aims to develop a shared negotiation framework to enable libraries and consortia to consistently and strategically introduce the issue of open publication metadata into negotiations, exerting leverage on publishers and vendors to make their metadata openly available. The Joint Task Force will produce practical tools and guidance to help negotiators embed open research information into their negotiation objectives.
The Joint Task Force represents a broadly international effort, with members from fourteen countries from Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. This session will describe the goals and activities of the taskforce, including opportunities to contribute, and contextualize the work of negotiating openness of publication metadata in the larger collective drive toward greater transparency in research and scholarship.