Ley de la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación (2011), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Gobierno de España

What is this about?

Ley de la Ciencia, la Tecnología y la Innovación (2011), produced by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Gobierno de España, is a national policy written in Spanish that sets the framework for open science and open access in Spain. It establishes openness as the default, balanced with ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and security, following the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary.” The law emphasizes that openness improves research quality, reproducibility, knowledge transfer, and equitable access, particularly for communities with limited resources. It requires open access to publications, encourages Creative Commons licensing, persistent identifiers, and deposition of manuscripts in trusted repositories, while also promoting FAIR data principles and data management plans. Authors and institutions are tasked with retaining rights, acknowledging funding, and justifying embargoes only in exceptional cases. Supported by national infrastructure like repositories and registries, the law aligns Spanish practices with international initiatives such as Plan S and the European Open Science Cloud. It also highlights responsible openness, ensuring safeguards for sensitive or commercial data. As a benchmark resource, it reduces ambiguity, provides a practical checklist, and serves as a credible reference for researchers, administrators, and policymakers in Spain.

For whom is this important?

ResearchersResearch institutionsPolicy makersFunding institutionsJournal publishers

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