Interview answered by Heidrun Åm, Senior Research Scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway.

1.    Does your organization have an open access strategy? And how are you implementing it?

Yes, we publish post-prints in the University Library system that is openly accessible to publics. The University Library at our University (the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU) provides the infrastructure needed to publish and share knowledge created at NTNU. NTNU University Library also provides support for researchers and research groups that want to start an open access journal. In addition, NTNUs open access fund grants funding for researchers to publish open access in journals that are not automatically open access.

In Norway, all publicly funded research, outreach activity and artistic activity is registered in the ‘Current Research Information System (Cristin)’. Cristin does not automatically provide access to research but at least gives an oversight over all research conducted and is connected with institutional post-print repositories.

2.    Are you facing any challenges to integrate an open access culture in your University? If yes, what kind of challenges? And how are you overcoming them?

Not concerning publishing articles, but people might be ambivalent about sharing data. From interviews conducted in a recent research project, we know that some researchers are also concerned about the scientific quality of some open access journals.

3.    What are your open access strategy and objectives for the coming years?

At our department, we follow-up on implementing the institutional guidelines (that is, ensure that post-prints are available in the repository). As most of us work with qualitative interviews, that must be seen in context and that are confidential, it is unlikely that we will engage in much data sharing.

4.    Open in order to…

…take in input and give back output.