Open Access 2020 (OA2020) is an international initiative to promote the transition of today’s scholarly journals from subscription to open access publishing. EGU President Hans Thybo signed the mission’s expression of interest yesterday on behalf of the EGU.

The EGU is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in scientific research and to the free and universal accessibility of scientific publications. Through Copernicus Publications, the Union publishes 17 peer-reviewed open access journals covering various topics of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. In addition, the EGU is a signatory of the 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. By endorsing OA2020, the EGU reinforces its support for the free and universal access to knowledge.

The new initiative builds on the Berlin Declaration, which has over 540 signatory institutions, and the progress achieved in promoting open access in the past 12 years. It is the result of the 12^th Berlin Open Access Conference, hosted by the Max Planck Society in December 2015. According to the initiative’s website, “OA2020 aims to accelerate the transition to open access by transforming the existing corpus of scientific journals from their current subscription system to open access.”

OA2020, launched only two days ago, currently has over 30 institutional supporters. All parties involved in academic publishing, such as universities, funders, publishers and libraries, are invited to sign the initiative’s expression of interest online.

• Open Access 2020 website
• New initiative to boost Open Access, by Max Planck Society
• More information about EGU’s publications and support for open access