Guest post by Catherine Sharp, Head of Open Access Services at UCL

Graphic from openaccessweek.org, photo by Greg Rakozy

“Who Owns Our Knowledge?”, the theme of this year’s International Open Access Week, asks how “communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce”. With commercial publishers continuing to monetise academic content through ever-increasing subscription and open access fees – the costs of so-called “transformative” agreements to UK HEIs is around £140m – and to report substantial and growing profit margins, while at the same time attempting to restrict authors’ rights in their own work, this remains a challenge for all HEIs. Against this background, the UK’s rights retention movement is a vital tool in the effort to free academic research and empower authors to use and share their knowledge.

UCL’s Intellectual Property (IP) Policy has long enshrined the principle that UCL staff own the copyright in their own scholarly materials, and that UCL has the right to use them for academic and research purposes. This year, with the introduction of an updated Publications Policy, UCL has joined a number of other universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and Manchester, in taking action to assert this right. This is known as rights retention.

In practical terms, this means that from 2026, having notified publishers of UCL’s pre-existing licence, UCL will make the accepted manuscripts of scholarly articles by UCL staff open access without an embargo in UCL Discovery, UCL’s open access repository, under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) (unless an alternative licence or exemption is requested). The CC BY licence allows widespread re-use and sharing, and is the licence that research funders, including Wellcome, UKRI, NIHR and EC funders, require.

Photo by Mary Hinckley, UCL Digital Media, ISD-LTMS

While UCL will continue to provide opportunities for authors to publish Gold open access through transformative agreements and in fully open access journals, articles that are not Gold open access will also benefit from immediate open access, on publication, in UCL Discovery. This will allow all UCL authors to meet their funders’ (including REF) open access requirements while continuing to publish in their journals of choice, and to benefit from open access through higher impact, increased citations and more collaborations.

Photo by Mary Hinkley, UCL Digital Media

The policy also benefits co-authors, and UCL authors are encouraged to let their co-authors know about it and to take advantage of it. Aside from that, authors do not need to take any action other than to upload their accepted manuscripts to RPS, on publication.

We are looking forward to seeing the practical effects of the policy as more UCL research is made available, more freely, than ever before.

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities.

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Graphic from openaccessweek.org, photo by Greg Rakozy

The theme for this year’s Open Access Week is ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?’ – a fundamental question in the world of Open Access. Here at the UCL Office for Open Science & Scholarship, we will be joining the global conversation around this question with blog posts from the perspectives of Copyright, Rights Retention, and Citizen Science, as well as a webinar with a panel discussion between four experts.

The Open Access Week website unpacks the theme by first asking ‘how communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce’. Increasingly, knowledge is being used without the permission or even awareness of those who produce it, through AI scraping, politicisation of research, and lack of attribution. What can be done to prevent this? The temptation may be to retreat from Open Access, as a means of protecting knowledge from inappropriate and indiscriminate use, however this is not the solution.

Knowledge is a human right.

Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave this statement in 2020, ‘Worldwide people need States, international bodies, science and medical institutions and practitioners to ensure the broadest possible sharing of scientific knowledge, and the broadest possible access to the benefits of scientific knowledge. This is key to any effective public health policy. It is essential to the combat against climate change. And it is a fundamental matter of human rights.’

Lucia Obst (WMDE), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

With this in mind, we should consider knowledge not owned solely by its producers, but by humanity collectively, to be accessed, used, and built upon.

At the same time, the considerable amount of effort that individuals and groups dedicate to producing knowledge needs to be appropriately recognised. A very pressing concern is that this is not something that AI tools are currently doing, with considerable discussion in the media covering concerns about materials being ingested into large language models and then regurgitated, often inaccurately, without attribution to the original authors.

In response to this, Creative Commons are working on ‘CC Signals’ – a project still very much in its early stages, which hopes to improve author attribution from AI. This topic, and Copyright in general, are complex areas within knowledge ownership. To explore further, we will have a dedicated blog post later this week from our Copyright Support Officer, Christine Daouti.

Photo by Mary Hinkley, © UCL Digital Media

Ultimately, most researchers want their knowledge to be used for the greatest benefit – to enhance people’s lives, improve how things are done, and find solutions to our biggest problems. Reasserting control to ensure this can happen, by making knowledge open and accessible, is crucial.

Therefore, whilst publishers might want to monopolise knowledge to maximise profits, authors are increasingly retaining control over their knowledge thanks to Rights Retention policies. At UCL, the Publications Policy has been updated this year to include a Rights Retention statement, and our Head of Open Access services, Catherine Sharp, will be explaining this in more detail in another blog post this week.

Bridger Teton NF, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also important to consider who has ownership over the production of knowledge. If knowledge should be for the widest possible audience, then the production of this knowledge should involve the widest possible community. This is where Citizen Science and Co-Production come in. These initiatives open the doors of knowledge production to include people with a broad range of backgrounds and experiences, who might otherwise have been excluded from the process. To unpack this topic in more depth, our Citizen Science Coordinator, Sheetal Saujani, will be contributing a blog post later this week.

We are looking forward to the conversations and insights which this Open Access Week will generate, and we hope you end the week with a desire to delve even deeper into the complex question of ‘Who Owns Our Knowledge?’

Read along with our upcoming blog posts and join the conversation on social media!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities.

Follow us on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

Share this post on Bluesky

As we continue celebrating International Open Access Week, following our earlier post on balancing openness and commercialisation, we’re now turning our focus to Citizen Science initiatives. Sheetal Saujani, UCL’s Citizen Science Coordinator, highlights in her article below how community-driven research and open access are shaping the future of knowledge creation, empowering individuals to make meaningful contributions to global challenges.

Did you know that ordinary citizens are making significant contributions to solving some of the world’s biggest challenges – from climate change to wildlife conservation?

This year’s International Open Access Week continues to focus on the importance of community in scholarly research and open access initiatives.

Definition of citizen science at UCL

UCL supports a broad approach to citizen science, recognising that there are different applications and functions of citizen science in research, whether they are community-driven research projects or global investigations.

Citizen science is characterised as research conducted by the public, often in collaboration with academic institutions, and is a diverse practice involving academic and community researchers from various disciplines.

At its most inclusive and most innovative, citizen science involves ordinary people as partners in the entire research process, including determining research themes, questions, methodologies and means of disseminating results. The involvement of people in participatory research can range from short-term data collection to intensive involvement in the research process, from technical contribution to genuine research, and from open collaboration to co-creation of knowledge.

Citizen science promotes community-driven collaboration over profit-driven research

Citizen science is a model for open access and collective participation in research, ensuring the benefits of knowledge creation are accessible to all.  It embodies community-driven collaboration because it is built on principles of openness, inclusivity, and shared ownership of knowledge. The focus is on addressing real-world problems and empowering communities to take part in research that benefits everyone – not on generating profit for a select few.

Why does open access matter?

Open access refers to the free, unrestricted access to research outputs like journal articles, data, and educational resources. It ensures that research reaches the widest possible audience, and that it can be used and shared easily.

Open access aligns with the values of community engagement and citizen science by making knowledge and data open to the public. This allows people to engage in research without the barriers of paywalls or proprietary information, unlike commercialised research, where data can be restricted for profit.

Citizen science as an open, community-driven approach

Citizen science is a community-driven approach that focuses on problem-solving and knowledge expansion, promoting open collaboration and ownership. Citizen science projects typically share their findings openly. Initiatives like Zooniverse and iNaturalist offer open access to tools, software, and platforms, democratising knowledge. By enabling people to participate in and shape real research based on publicly accessible data, this approach promotes accessibility and inclusivity. It builds trust between researchers and the public, strengthening the quality and impact of research by drawing on collective wisdom and diverse perspectives.

Case studies: open access in citizen science

Below are two examples of successful citizen science projects that embody this week’s theme.

Air quality monitoring by communities: In the Open AQ project, citizens use open-access, low-cost sensors to track air pollution in their neighbourhoods. The data collected is shared freely and openly, allowing communities to act and policymakers to respond. This contrasts with commercial entities that might charge for proprietary pollution data or sensor technology.

Biodiversity conservation: iNaturalist invites people to document plant and animal species in their area. The data is shared freely, benefiting researchers and conservationists worldwide. No one is excluded based on ability to pay or access to commercial tools – everyone has a stake in biodiversity protection.

Challenges and opportunities: advancing with community in mind

Challenges of commercialisation in citizen science do exist: some citizen science platforms are commercialised, locking data behind paywalls or limiting access to paying users. Profit-driven research models hinder knowledge access, distort priorities, exploit participants, and compromise objectivity. To benefit society and produce shared findings, it is important to prioritise the public good and fair access to research.

Promoting open access in citizen science can enhance participation, diversity, and openness. Because citizen science invites participation from all, it offers opportunities for underrepresented communities and developing countries to contribute to and benefit from research. This inclusive model breaks down barriers in commercialised research systems, ensuring marginalised voices are heard and valued in the research process.

We would encourage everyone to support open access movements and citizen science platforms and projects that rank community benefit over profit.

Empowering the public through open access and citizen science

Open access and citizen science align with the theme of “Community over Commercialization” by prioritising collaboration and transparency in research. Open access removes barriers, while citizen science empowers people to participate in research projects. This approach puts the interests of the public first and benefits the wider population.

Looking towards the future, prioritising community-driven approaches in research can lead to more equitable, inclusive, and impactful research. Citizen science and open access work together to resist commercialised research, leading to a more equitable, community-centred approach to research.

As we celebrate International Open Access Week, let’s remember that when we put community at the heart of research, we empower everyone to contribute to the knowledge that shapes our world and makes a lasting impact on society.