February 7, 2025
After the successful launch of the Barcelona Declaration in April 2024, over 100 research performing and funding organizations from 26 countries have already signed the Declaration, and close to 50 data, service and infrastructure providers have formally expressed their support for the Declaration.
In September 2024, signatories and supporters came together at the Paris Conference on Open Research Information, where they jointly designed a road map with collective actions to bring about the transition to open research information.
The next steps are to facilitate and support these actions through working groups that are currently being set up, and to continue dissemination and outreach activities to expand the reach and impact of the Barcelona Declaration.
The key to success in the goals of the Barcelona Declaration will be in effectively and efficiently coordinating this collective work. To do this in a well-organized and transparent way requires setting up support structures and governance mechanisms, and securing the necessary resources to support these activities. We are excited to share a number of important updates on these issues.
Coordination and support
The Barcelona Declaration Office has been set up to facilitate and assist working groups, organize meetings and reporting, manage the website and social media platforms, and promote and foster engagement with the Barcelona Declaration.
CWTS Leiden, SIRIS Foundation and Crossref have committed funding for a period of 3 years (EUR 45k per organization, totalling 135k per year) to support the staffing and general operating expenses of the Barcelona Declaration Office. The arrangement is detailed in a Memorandum of Understanding. We welcome additional funding from grants, community contributions, or other sources. Such funding may be used to fund specific activities, for example organizing events, advocacy and communication actions.
Governance
Decision-making authority and strategic direction for Barcelona Declaration activities, and consequently for the activities of the Barcelona Declaration Office, will ultimately rest with a Barcelona Declaration Board, to be established in 2025 with representation among signatories and supporters.
Until the establishment of the Barcelona Declaration Board, a steering group will temporarily assume responsibility for the strategic guidance of Barcelona Declaration activities. This steering group consists of representation from the organizations that so far have coordinated the launch and activities of the Barcelona Declaration (CWTS Leiden, SIRIS Foundation, Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) and Sorbonne University) with the addition of a representative from Crossref as organization supporting the administration of the Barcelona Declaration Office.
Executive Director
We are delighted to announce that Bianca Kramer (Sesame Open Science) has been appointed as Executive Director of the Barcelona Declaration, being responsible for strategic planning and public representation of the Declaration. She will serve as Executive Director of the Declaration alongside other consulting work she is doing in the open science space. Bianca has played a crucial role in the process of drafting the Declaration and in engaging with signatories and supporters of the Declaration. She will now lead the further development of the Declaration, liaising closely with the steering group and, once established, the Barcelona Declaration Board.
There will also soon be a vacancy for a Community Manager on a contract basis - keep an eye out for this opportunity!
More information
Over the next weeks and months, we will keep you informed about the activities around the Barcelona Declaration. These will include the start of working groups, hiring a Community Manager and establishing the Barcelona Declaration Board.
In addition, on May 28-29 this year, the Barcelona Declaration is co-organizing the Workshop on Open Citations and Open Scholarly Metadata (WOOC2025) with the University of Bologna and OpenCitations, with the first day dedicated to the Barcelona Declaration roadmap and actions.
For more information, please reach out to contact@barcelona-declaration.org.
We count on your continued involvement to bring about the transition to open research information!
Amélie Church, Sorbonne Université
Bernardo Rondelli, SIRIS Foundation
Cameron Neylon, Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI), Curtin University
Ginny Hendricks, Crossref
Ludo Waltman, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University