Membership expanded to non-publisher organisations and individuals to broaden open scholarship discussion with additional perspectives
Today OASPA launches a new way to advance open scholarship: Supporter Membership. In commitment to its mission goal to convene community stakeholders to share experiences, discuss problems and identify opportunities in the advancement of open access; and in recognition of the diversity of stakeholders invested in open access, OASPA has launched this new membership category.
With the Supporter Membership category, OASPA welcomes organisations and individuals without a publishing program to have a formal place in the organisation and to support its work.
“We are excited to launch this new way for organisations to support our work to advance open access publishing” says Claire Redhead, Executive Director of OASPA.
“OASPA’s growth has followed the expansion of open access itself, encompassing a broad range of organisations engaged in different and innovative approaches to open access publishing or providing key services and infrastructures. Increasingly in our events we are getting to the heart of some of the issues that all stakeholders in the scholarly communication systems are impacted by. As we continue to work towards an equitable future for open scholarship, it is important to bring in as many voices as possible. It’s been heartening to see the level of interest in our activities from an ever growing number of organisations and regions of the world.
We are delighted to extend a welcome beyond our traditional members and to enable all who care about open scholarship to join our community”
OASPA saw its membership grow faster in 2021 than in recent years, with that trend continuing into 2022. OASPA’s popular events program – consisting of a webinar series and annual conference – attracted over 2500 attendees in 2021 with a growing majority from organisations, and academic settings, that are not directly involved in OA publishing. This evidence of strong interest in OASPA’s work from non-members led OASPA to develop this new offering.
For more information about the new Supporter category or to join as a supporter, please visit https://oaspa.org/support-oaspa/