Open access – unrestricted access to scientific publications and data sets – is an established goal in the scientific community. Open access makes scientific publications and other digital material, such as research data, freely accessible to everybody. As a signatory to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, IIASA is committed to providing unrestricted and cost-free online access to its scientific publications and data for all users and researchers.

The main goal is to increase the visibility, use, and impact of research output, and thereby generate value for the scientific community and other users of research. To ensure good data management and open access to all IIASA research, the institute maintains an institutional publications and data repository (PURE) for research produced by IIASA affiliated researchers.

Since 2016, the institute has required all IIASA researchers to deposit a complete version of each peer-reviewed research article that they author into the IIASA institutional repository and to make it freely accessible within 12 months of its online publication date.

The institute helps researchers find funds to cover publication fees through grants or other funding opportunities, and additional financial support is provided through dedicated IIASA open access funding. In addition, IIASA encourages its researchers that publish in books to negotiate open access and provides advice and support in this regard.

A significant share of IIASA’s research is based upon quantitative, numerical models to investigate research questions of global importance. Providing open access to models, tools and related datasets developed through the expertise of researchers at IIASA in this domain provides innumerable benefits and synergies to the entire institution, its scientific collaborators and international organizations as well as its National Member Organizations (NMOs). The quantitative models and tools developed at IIASA benefit from solid reputation in the scientific and policy making communities and are supporting policy processes in achieving sustainable development across countries.

As such, IIASA encourages researchers and software developers to provide open access to the models and tools, following the spirit of Open Science, whenever possible. The inventory of models and tools developed and maintained by IIASA affiliated researchers is available at our dedicated webpage.