Introduction

The incorporation of Cyprus into the EU has resulted in a significant rise in research over the last few years. This rise has also been helped by the creation of six more universities, both public and private, in addition to the current University of Cyprus. Since the EU has given a significant boost to research activity nationally by being the primary funder of research, its role is considered particularly important for further support of research both for researchers and the organizations that employ them. The Research Promotion Council funds and promotes research in the country but most research is EU funded (OpenAIRE). University of Cyprus and Cyprus University of Technology have institutional repositories; 

As of March 2021, DOAJ indexes no OA journals which are published in Cyprus. OpenDOAR registers six institutional OA digital repositories maintained by the Eastern Mediterranean University, the Cyprus University of Technology, the Open University of Cyprus and the University of Cyprus. No OA policies are currently registered in ROARMAP at either the institutional or national level. 

Enabling Environment

Since the EU, as the primary funder of research, has provided a major boost to research activity at a national level, its position is seen as especially important for more research support, both for researchers and for the organisations that employ them.

The University of Cyprus has signed the Berlin Declaration.

Potential Barriers

There is no national mandate or OA coordinating body in Cyprus; lack of awareness of open access issues.

Key Organizations

Cyprus Inscriptions Database is part of the Ancient World Online (AWOL) project.

There are 4 Open Access Institutional Repositories in which researchers can submit their research output in Cyprus:

• The repositories GNOSIS & LEKYTHOS, provided by the University of Cyprus: The University of Cyprus Library as the regional NOAD of Cyprus offers GNOSIS as the institutional repository for the research outputs of the UCy researchers. Lekythos now mainly hosts digitised or digital born material of mainly archival and/or cultural heritage material.
• The storage facility KTISIS, Cyprus University of Technology: Ktisis is the Cyprus University of Technology Library's Institutional Repository. Ktisis is an open source institutional repository that collects any digital material relating to the Cyprus University of Technology's various activities, especially original research material generated by the university's members.
• The repository KYPSELI, Open University Cyprus: Kypseli, is the Open University of Cyprus' institutional repository, which houses journals, theses, and digital cultural material.

There are two harvesters in Cyprus. Cyprus Open Archives harvests all repositories based in Cyprus, offering one point access to digitised or digital born content, including research papers, thesis or cultural heritage objects. Another harvester, hosted by the Ministry of Education and Culture, was created primarily for the purpose of supplying digital objects to Europeana and harvesting cultural heritage items.

On the 21st of October 2013 the "Cyprus University of Technology Open Access Author Fund" was launched. The agreement between the Cyprus University of Technology Library and the pharmaceutical company REMEDICA was signed, according to which academic publications will be funded on Open Access terms. The terms include publishing in Open Access journals, the publishers being member of Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association and following the OASPA Code of Conduct. In the case of books these must be published in the Directory of Open Access Books.

The informative activities (due to OpenAIRE and OpenAIREplus) have already been and will continue to be helpful in establishing a collaboration mechanism among researchers, institutions, funding organizations, EC National Reference Point, repository managers, librarians and the librarians association – a real human network that ensures that the idea, spirit, approach and practices compliant with Horizon 2020 Open Access (OA) mandates will continue to spread and be served.

INTRA database has been initiated at the University of Cyprus in

preparation for setting up an open institutional repository with the metadata and the digital objects (papers, technical reports, numerical data).

E-BiBa a Greek and Cypriot open access database on Information and Library Science that contains conferences proceedings, journal papers, seminar documents) and systematically forwards papers to E-LIS, the international open access repository.

Events and Programmes

• 24 July 2020, 3rd webinar series in Greek: season finale with Intellectual Property Rights
• 06 July 2020, OpenAIRE for repository managers: interoperability, metadata enrichment and usage statistics in Greece and Cyprus
• 11 March 2020, Open Data Day 2020 in Cyprus
• Open Data Day: Transparency, Innovation, Development, 2020 Event organized by OpenAIRE and the Ministry of Finance, Department of Public Administration and Personnel
• 07 November 2019, Open Science: From Theory to practice,  National OpenAIRE event
• 30 May 2019, Setting up a data stewardship programme - an institutional perspective
• Ανοικτή Επιστήμη: Απο τη θεωρία στην Πράξη / Open Science: From Theory to Practice, 2019-10-24, Cyprus, Organized by OpenAIRE Cyprus NOAD | Type: national, workshop
• Open Science and the Role of Repositories, 2018 National OpenAIRE event with the collaboration of RPF & DG EPCD
• Open Access: the direct dissemination of the produced scientific knowledge, 2017 Workshop for Open Access with the collaboration of OpenAIRE, RPF, OUC & DG EPCD
• Ανοικτή Πρόσβαση: Η άμεση διάδοση της επιστημονικής γνώσης, 2017-10-27, Cyprus, Organized by Stathis Mavrotheris | Type: open, access, day
• Open Access in Cyprus, 2016 Event by Open University of Cyprus 2016
• Open Access: Cyprus National Policy, 2016-10-26, Cyprus, Organized by Stathis Mavrotheris | Type: seminar
• Open in Action ,CUT in Action, 2016-10-26, Cyprus, Organized by Cyprus University of Technology Library | Type: presentations, &, discussion
• National Workshop For Open Access, 2015 OpenAIRE/FOSTER event 2015
• Open Acces Author Fund, 2015-10-23, Cyprus, Organized by Marios Zervas | Type: ceremony
• October 2015: University of Cyprus Library (Cyprus): “Open access to research publications and data.” This was a FOSTER-supported training programme organized in partnership with EIFL with the aim of setting in place sustainable mechanisms for EU researchers to Foster Open Science. This was one of the 24 training programmes organized in 2015 for the the research communities of 17 other EU countries.
• On 22 April, 2015 the first meeting of the Working Group for Open Access took place in the University of Cyprus, in Nicosia, Cyprus in the presence of the local National Points of Reference for Open Access, the main funding institutions for research in Cyprus, and representatives from almost all the academic institutions of Cyprus. The event was organized by the OpenAIRE2020 Cyprus NOAD. The agenda of the meeting included policies and practices of EU on Open Access, Open Access benefits, the necessity of the adoption of a national Open Access policy and the potential creation of a national OA repository, which would function as a national harvester for the institutional repositories of Cyprus.
• Open Access Week was celebrated on 24 October, 2014 at the University of Cyprus, where the University of Cyprus Library (Cyprus OpenAIRE National Open Access Desk) and the Cyprus Association of Librarians-Information Scientists co-organized a one-day conference “Open Access to knowledge: policies and actions in EU and local level”.

Publications

• Dini Kounoudes, A., P. Artemi, and M. Zervas. 2010. “Ktisis: Building an Open Access Institutional and Cultural Repository.” Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics) 6436 LNCS:504–12. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-16873-4_41.
• Giannoulakis, Stamatios and Zervas, Marios and Artemi, Petros Promoting Open Access at the Cyprus University of Technology: survey results., 2012 . In 5th International Conference on Information Law 2012, Corfu, June 29-30, 2012. [Conference paper]
• Ioannides, M., A. Hadjiprocopi, N. Doulamis, A. Doulamis, E. Protopapadakis, K. Makantasis, P. Santos, D. Fellner, A. Stork, O. Balet, M. Julien, G. Weinlinger, P. S. Johnson, M. Klein, and D. Fritsch. 2013. “Online 4d Reconstruction Using Multi-Images Available under Open Access.” Pp. 169–74 in ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. 2.
• Koukounidou, V. V. 2017. “OpenAIRE: Supporting the H2020 Open Access Mandate.” Pp. 56–61 in Expanding Perspectives on Open Science: Communities, Cultures and Diversity in Concepts and Practices - Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Electronic Publishing.
• Massalas, M., A. Konstantinidis, A. Achilleos, C. Markides, and G. Papadopoulos. 2018. “CrODA-Gator: An Open Access CrowdSourcing Platform as a Service.” Pp. 585–90 in 2018 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops, PerCom Workshops 2018.
• Melagraki, G., and A. Afantitis. 2016. “Editorial: Towards Open Access for Cheminformatics.” Combinatorial Chemistry and High Throughput Screening 19(4):260–61. doi: 10.2174/138620731904160413183904.
• National Open Access and Preservation Policies in Europe: Analysis of a Questionnaire to the European Research Area Committee; EUROPEAN UNION, 2011.
• Nikolaidis, A. I., C. A. Charalambous, and M. Panteli. 2017. “Distribution Loss Factors for the Emerging, Open-Access Electricity Market in Cyprus.” in 2017 IEEE Manchester PowerTech, Powertech 2017.
• Polat, B., R. Özmanevra, P. T. Özmanevra, and K. Ç. Kazikdaş. 2019. “Comparison of the Impact Factors of Subscription Access and Open Access Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Journals in the SCImago Database.” Eklem Hastaliklari ve Cerrahisi 30(2):163–67. doi: 10.5606/ehc.2019.64729.
• Zervas, M., P. Artemi, and S. Giannoulakis. 2017. “Open Access Policy and Funding in Cyprus University of Technology: A Case Study.” Pp. 44–55 in Expanding Perspectives on Open Science: Communities, Cultures and Diversity in Concepts and Practices - Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Electronic Publishing.