OAPEN Strategic Plan 2025 – 2028
OAPEN was established in 2011 as a not-for-profit and independent Dutch foundation (stichting) operating a digital library for peer-reviewed open access (OA) books. OAPEN is fully open and free to use for humans and machines without any payments or registrations required. OAPEN is based on the FAIR principles and adheres to the POSI principles for open scholarly infrastructures (POSI self-audit). These principles are at the heart of our governance, financial management, and technical operations. Furthermore, we live by values such as equity, (biblio)diversity, and inclusion. Our strategic plan will show how we translate these values into action.
Our vision is based on the Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stating that “Everyone has the right […] to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” To support this universal goal, we believe that all scholarly books should be shared and distributed openly and fairly for the collective benefit of humanity.
Our mission is to maintain and develop the OAPEN Library and related open infrastructure services for peer-reviewed scholarly books, open textbooks, and OER to relevant stakeholders, such as publishers, research funders, libraries, and researchers to the benefit of the public at large.
Goals and Objectives
| GOAL | Objectives |
|---|---|
| 1. Improve our services in alignment with the demands of our stakeholder | Increase stakeholder engagement |
| Keep our existing services available and reliable | |
| Develop new services | |
| Build capacity for our stakeholders | |
| Advocate for open access book publishing and open infrastructures | |
| 2. Promote and ensure high quality standards for books in the OAPEN Library while respecting bibliodiversity | Develop our evaluation criteria guidelines and workflow |
| Monitor the diversity of publishers added to the OAPEN Library | |
| Engage in international efforts around quality assessment | |
| 3. Improve the user experience of the OAPEN Library | Analyse re-design opportunities and general UX |
| Monitor and improve accessibility compliance | |
| Improve content discoverability and usability | |
| 4. Explore how generative AI can drive innovation | Exploration of GenAI within OAPEN |
| GenAI integration | |
| 5. Build productive partnerships and collaborations with other open infrastructures and relevant stakeholders | Strengthen existing partnerships and collaborations |
| Explore new partnerships and collaborations | |
| 6. Promote and support equitable open access distribution opportunities for scholarly publishers globally | Encourage geographic dispersal |
| Promote multilingualism | |
| Engage in collaborative initiatives to support equity | |
| 7. Professionalise the administration and management of OAPEN | Monitor compliance with POSI principles |
| Discuss and reflect on organisational values at all staff meetings at least once a year | |
| Upskill staff whenever relevant and meaningful | |
| Be a good employer | |
| 8. Make OAPEN financially robust and resilient | Increase our professional management of partner collaborations |
| Grow our revenue | |
| Perform annual review of our Risk Management Plan | |
| Improve our financial administrative workflows and processes |
Download and read the OAPEN Strategic Plan 2025 – 2028.