The University of Trieste, in compliance with the terms of art. 2.5 of its Statute and of art. 2 of its Ethical Code, promotes the fulfillment of the principle of open access (OA), as defined by the October 2003 Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. The principle of open access aims at realizing the high, constitutional values of fostering the advancement of culture and scientific research, and of preserving academic freedom. Particularly, it aims at enhancing the dissemination of scholarly research globally; at limiting the duplication rate of scientific projects; at strengthening interdisciplinary research, knowledge transfer to private sector and openness to citizens at large; at maximizing the use of scholarly products in education; at ensuring the preservation in time of scientific publications and data.

University of Trieste Open Access Timeline: 

• 2004: endorsement of the Berlin Declaration via the Messina Declaration and kick-start of the PhD Theses self-archiving project.
• 2006: PhD Theses self-archiving on open access.
• 2008: start of open access archiving for the publications of the University Press EUT.
• 2011: establishment of a University Commission for Open Access.
• 2013: approval and enactment of the University Policy on Open Access to Scholarly Literature.
• 2015: launch of ArTS, the new research archive implementing the University Policy on Open Access.
• 2020: signing of the first transformative agreements for the University of Trieste.