Federal Open Access law (2014), Mexican Federal Government

What is this about?

The Federal Open Access Law (2014), issued by the Mexican Federal Government, provides a national framework for open science and open access in Mexico. Written in Spanish, it translates high-level principles into actionable guidance for researchers, institutions, funders, and publishers, promoting openness as the default while respecting ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and security. The law links openness to research quality, reproducibility, equitable access, and faster translation of knowledge, particularly for communities with limited subscription access. Key elements include open access to publications with preferred licensing (e.g., Creative Commons), deposition in trusted repositories, FAIR data principles, and comprehensive data management plans. Responsibilities for authors and institutions cover funding acknowledgment, rights retention, and budgeting, while justified embargoes and exceptions for sensitive, commercial, or security-relevant data are transparently documented. The law encourages enabling infrastructure repositories, registries, discovery services and aligns with international initiatives such as Plan S and the European Open Science Cloud. Assessment emphasizes the quality of openness, including machine-readable metadata, persistent identifiers, and sharing of methods, code, and data. Equity, multilingual communication, and capacity building are highlighted to prevent reinforcing disparities. Implementation relies on early planning, institutional support, and funder-backed infrastructure. The law serves as a practical reference, checklist, and benchmark, supporting compliance, transparency, reproducibility, and alignment with global norms.

For whom is this important?

All stakeholders in research

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