During this Open Access Week Forte will highlight ongoing work related to publishing with open access and access to research data. Forte’s Director General and Secretary General also explain why open science is so important.

The theme of this year’s Open Access Week is Community over Commercialisation and aims to raise awareness around the importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems. The Swedish government’s objective is that the transition to an openly accessible publishing system should be fully implemented in 2026 at the latest. Forte works to push the development forward.

– Sweden has taken the lead in many issues related to open access, and Forte is driving the transition both through changes within our own processes and by participation in national and international projects, says Forte’s Director General, Jonas Björck. One of the most important issues is how the publication of scientific articles should work in the future – an issue that is also part of the theme of this year’s Open Access Week.

Why open access?

Olle Lundberg, Forte’s Secretary General, has been active in various projects regarding open access, for example at the National Library of Sweden and The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions. For him open science is part of the basic principles of science:

– As scientists we have a lot of dialogue in various ways, he says. We discuss, debate, present, and get input and critique on our results. Publication of our results is also part of this dialogue. By publishing scientific results, a larger group of people can take part of our results – now and in the future! It then makes little sense to publish the results behind paywalls, not the least if we think about things like societal impact and when the results come from publicly funded research.

Since 2020 Forte has implemented open access requirements or recommendations that apply to all research we fund, both regarding publication and research data.

See a filmed interview by Karolinska Institutet University Library with Olle Lundberg talking more about the importance of open access, the roles of publishers, the roles of funders and his view on this year’s theme of the Open Access Week Community over Commercialisation:


Open Access Week 2023, Karolinska Institutet University Library

More information on the topic in Swedish:
Transformative agreements
Proposals on national guidelines of open science