Spanish Legislation about Open Access

Spanish Legal Framework

Royal decree 99/2011, of 28 January, regulating official teaching for the Ph.D. degree

(BOE 10 February 2011).

Articles 14.5 and 14.6. Compulsory open access deposit of Ph.D. theses approved (with some exceptions provided for in 14.6 and First Interim Provision)

14.5. Once the Ph.D. thesis has been approved, the university shall archive it in an open institutional repository in electronic format and shall send, also in electronic format, a copy and any complementary information necessary, to the Ministry of Education for all due effects and purposes

14.6. Under exceptional circumstances determined by the programme academic committee, such as, for example, the participation of businesses in the programme or school, the existence of confidentiality agreements with companies or the possibility of generating patents which fall within the content of the thesis, the universities shall design procedures for developing Sections 4 and 5 above to ensure that these aspects are not publicised.

First interim provision. Ph.D. students in conformity with previous legislation.

For Ph.D. candidates who at the date this royal decree goes into effect may have begun their doctoral studies in conformity with previous legislation, the provisions regulating the doctorate and issue of the Ph.D. degree for which these studies may have been begun shall apply. In any case, the system of jury, defence and evaluation of the doctoral thesis provided for in this royal decree shall apply to said students starting the year it goes into effect.

Law 14/2011, of 1 June, on science, technology and innovation

(BOE 2 de June 2011). Preambles I and VI and Article 37

Article 37. Open access diffusion.

1. The public agents of the Spanish of Science, Technology and Innovation system shall encourage the development of open-access repositories of their own or shared, and set up systems enabling similar Spanish or international initiatives to connect to them.

2. The research staff whose research work is funded mostly by the General State Budget shall publish a digital version of the final version of the contents which have been accepted for publication in research publication series or periodicals as soon as possible, but no later than twelve months from the official date of publication.

3. The electronic version shall be made public in open-access repositories recognized in the field of knowledge in which the research was done or in open-access institutional repositories.

4. The public electronic version may be used by the Government in their evaluation processes.

5. The Ministry of Science and Innovation shall provide centralised access to the repositories and their connection to similar Spanish and international initiatives.