In a session in which representatives of several countries of the Regional Online Information System for Scientific Journals of Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal (Latindex) and National Nodes of LA Reference were present, the organizations signed and initiated the Framework Collaboration Agreement that aims to consolidate a Regional Open Science Ecosystem.

The objectives of the agreement are to constitute a collaboration framework between Latindex, LA Reference and RedCLARA for the establishment of the implementation principles of openness, consensus, inclusion and harmonization, community approach, non-profit, for the consolidation of a Regional Open Science Ecosystem.

Lautaro Matas, executive and technical secretary of LA Reference, emphasized the commitments that this Cooperation Agreement entails: “with the signing of this agreement we are committing to work together above all to improve the interoperability of the repository platforms, journals and other systems of our Ibero-American scientific and technological environment. We want to promote that scientific production published in open access journals is available both in the institutional repositories that are part of the LA Reference network, as well as in the evaluation and research management platforms for our entire region.”

For her part, Ana María Cetto, founding president of Latindex and president of the UNESCO Open Science Committee, enthusiastically celebrated the signing of this agreement and what it will mean for the region: “we finally formalized our collaboration, we have been sharing principles, values, efforts, visions and experiences for years. This is not a mere formality, this agreement lays the foundations to work together for the advancement of open science in Ibero-America, through the development and exchange of good practices in data, software, infrastructure and services for the benefit of our magazines.” Cetto also pointed out: “the region deserves it!”

For Andrea Mora, president of LA Reference, the agreement demonstrates the openness of the systems to work together for Open Science: “for LA Reference this agreement represents a very important advance, as well as for the region, because it allows us to build and strengthen the Open Science Ecosystem in Latin America. It will also allow us to optimize the resources we have and continue doing what we know how to do very well: work collectively to democratize knowledge and make visible the science we do in the region.”

Luis Eliécer Cadenas, director of RedCLARA: “we have to continue working for the open science ecosystem, to build and consolidate the development of knowledge and more capabilities in our region. They always count on us with the possibilities we can have to carry out these efforts.”

Next, José Octavio Alonso, general coordinator of Latindex, reflected on the opportunities that this agreement opens up: “the collaboration that we signed today with LA Reference is part of a good track record that Latindex has, in the sense of collaborating with other initiatives in the region, to share knowledge and information. With LA Reference we are interested in developing services that support national and institutional open science policies and strategies in the region with a cooperative and non-profit approach. Latindex views with great interest the progress of LA Reference in matters of development of harvesters and interoperability. Interoperability between Latin American indexing platforms is practically non-existent and its promotion would undoubtedly allow us to take advantage of all the cataloging efforts carried out by all the systems in the region.”

Finally, Guillermo Chávez, technical coordinator of Latindex, supported the importance of the agreement: “I applaud these types of initiatives, and what better way to do it with LA Reference. We will continue to support from UNAM these initiatives that seek good practices and the development of infrastructure and shared and interoperable software.”

At the conclusion of the signing of the Agreement, representatives of the different countries of Latindex and LA Reference, took advantage of the moment to make public their congratulations and satisfaction with the agreement, with enthusiasm that it adds to the construction of open science in the Ibero-American region.

Find the full text of the Cooperation Agreement here