Proposal: Global Open Research and Education Access Initiati

{
"title": "The Global Open Research and Education Access Initiative (GOREAI): Fostering Innovation, Equity, and Public Good",
"description": "# The Global Open Research and Education Access Initiative (GOREAI): Fostering Innovation, Equity, and Public Good\n\n## Preamble\n\nWhereas, access to knowledge, research, and quality education is a fundamental human right and a cornerstone of societal progress, economic development, and democratic participation;\n\nWhereas, the current global landscape often restricts access to essential research findings and educational resources behind prohibitive paywalls and proprietary systems, thereby exacerbating inequalities between and within nations;\n\nWhereas, publicly funded research, intended to serve the common good, should be freely and immediately accessible to all citizens who have directly or indirectly contributed to its funding;\n\nWhereas, the rapid advancements in digital technology offer unprecedented opportunities to democratize access to information and foster global collaboration in science and education;\n\nWhereas, the World Parliament recognizes its duty to establish policies that promote equitable wealth distribution, strengthen social safety nets, encourage regulated markets, and ensure the reinvestment of public resources into services that benefit all humanity;\n\nTherefore, be it enacted by the World Parliament, as follows:\n\n## Article 1: Definitions\n\n1. \"Open Access\" shall mean the immediate, worldwide, free, and unrestricted online access to peer-reviewed scholarly research and educational materials, permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.\n2. \"Open Educational Resources (OER)\" shall mean teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.\n\n## Article 2: Mandate for Open Access to Publicly Funded Research\n\n1. All scholarly research articles, monographs, and data sets resulting from funding, in whole or in part, by national governments, intergovernmental organizations, public universities, or any other public entity, shall be made immediately and openly accessible upon publication.\n2. Such research shall be deposited in a recognized, interoperable, and publicly accessible open repository that adheres to international standards for archiving and discoverability, and shall be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license or an equivalent open license that permits maximum reuse.\n3. No embargo period exceeding six (6) months from the date of initial publication shall be permitted for any publicly funded research. The World Parliament shall strive for the complete elimination of embargo periods over time, advocating for immediate open access as the default.\n4. Public funding bodies shall incorporate compliance with this mandate as a prerequisite for receiving research grants and shall allocate a reasonable percentage of grant funds to cover legitimate open access publishing costs, including Article Processing Charges (APCs) where applicable, subject to the provisions of Article 5.\n\n## Article 3: Global Open Educational Resources (OER) Platform\n\n1. The World Parliament shall establish and maintain a Global OER Commons, a centralized, multilingual digital platform for the creation, curation, and dissemination of high-quality, peer-reviewed Open Educational Resources across all levels of education, from primary to tertiary and vocational training.\n2. The Global OER Commons shall prioritize the development of core curricula, digital literacy resources, and materials addressing global challenges such as climate change, public health, and sustainable development goals.\n3. Incentives, including grants and recognition programs, shall be established to encourage educators, institutions, and subject matter experts worldwide to contribute to and adapt OER for diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.\n\n## Article 4: Capacity Building and Infrastructure Development\n\n1. The World Parliament shall establish a dedicated fund to provide technical assistance, training, and financial support to developing nations for the creation, maintenance, and interoperability of national and institutional open access repositories and OER initiatives.\n2. Programs shall be implemented to enhance digital literacy and internet connectivity in underserved regions to ensure equitable access to the resources made available through this Initiative.\n3. Support shall be provided for the development of robust, secure, and sustainable digital infrastructure necessary for the long-term preservation and accessibility of open knowledge assets.\n\n## Article 5: Sustainable Transition and Fair Compensation for Publishers\n\n1. The World Parliament recognizes the valuable role of private sector publishers and scholarly societies in peer review, editing, and dissemination processes. This Initiative aims for a sustainable transition to an open knowledge ecosystem, not the undermining of legitimate services.\n2. Public funding bodies and academic institutions are encouraged to negotiate \"Publish and Read\" or other transformative agreements with publishers that transition subscription expenditures into open access publishing services, ensuring that public funds are not used to pay twice for the same content.\n3. Where Article Processing Charges (APCs) are utilized, strict caps shall be imposed to prevent excessive costs, and comprehensive waiver programs, funded by public research grants, shall be mandatory for researchers from low- and middle-income countries and for those without institutional support.\n4. The Global Open Knowledge Council (established in Article 6) shall actively encourage and support innovative, non-profit, and institution-led open access publishing models, such as Diamond Open Access (no author or reader fees), to diversify the publishing landscape and reduce reliance on APCs.\n\n## Article 6: Governance and Oversight – The Global