Opening up International Organisations: Open Access at ESA, WIPO, UNESCO and CERN

Marco Trovatello The International Organisations
(IGO) European Space Agency ESA, the United Nations World
Intellectual Propoerty Organisation WIPO, the European Organization
for Nuclear Research CERN and UNESCO, the UN scientific and
cultural organisation, have one thing in common: All of them
adopted, more or less recently, an Open Access policy for
their information and data.  Producing a wealth of data and
content such as images, videos, reports, scientific results etc.,
these have been published until not long ago under traditional all
rights reserved licences. With their recent changes in policy, the
aforementioned IGO's can now facilitate use and re-use for the
general public, media, the educational sector, partners and anybody
else seeking to utilise and build upon the material. “Open access
to ESA’s images, information and knowledge is not just necessary to
spread Space news and content as widely as possible in today's
digital age, but it is also necessary to give back
scientific-technical knowledge and insight to the tax payers who
fund us” states e.g. ESA. Most IGO's have decided to release
content under the Creative Commons IGO licencing scheme. CC IGO
licences were designed for use by intergovernmental organisations.
Marco Trovatello, working for the European Space
Agency's Communcation Department, will represent the
International Organisations (IGO) Working Group on Open Access to
discuss the groups intentions, strategies and their
policies in practice, eager to receive feedback and engage in an
open dialogue with the audience.