This tour of the world's sites begins here at home with the column by Reginaldo Moraes, a neighbor in this virtual space, about the democratic transition in Spain (“Political transitions and the numbing role of fear”). The text addresses a timely and current topic for our countries, but the anniversary is also timely, as in June Spain celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first general legislative elections in that country, after Franco's death two years earlier. And I recommend here a documentary released by El País, “When Spain learned to vote”: 18 minutes with testimonies from characters, images and videos from the time. It's always good to watch a chronicle that celebrates democracy.
A few years before these elections, an education reform was discussed in Spain, within which the autonomous universities of Madrid and Barcelona were created in 1968. Both are in the rankings of the best universities under 50 years old, as was the case with Unicamp, a little older and also founded during a dictatorship.
Walking around the sites of these and other European universities in August is almost tedious: with the summer holidays, university portals, from Lisbon to Helsinki, were almost static for three weeks. O Sorbonne portal displayed an image during this period wishing you a good vacation, now a few days ago we see a “good return”
All that was left was to look at the agendas of what will happen from September onwards. Among the countless possibilities, I stopped at a university much younger than the Sorbonne, but older than the Spanish ones mentioned: the Free University of Berlin, founded in 1948, not in a dictatorship, but due to the cold war, as the university of 1810 was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. On the Universidade Livre portal you will find the English version of the page about open access (to scientific publishing), it's worth taking a look: The university is a signatory to the ”Berlin Declaration for open access to knowledge in the sciences and humanities” and the equivalent of its university council recommends that all its members publish in open access journals, for the that there is a fund to cover the costs of this initiative. On the agenda for September is the “Open Science workshop” and the schedule appears on the website: www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/open_access/termine/open_science_workshop.html.
This event is very timely, in a scenario where the struggle between a consortium of German universities, scientific societies and public libraries and Elsevier, one of the largest publishers of scientific journals in the world, continues indefinitely. The German consortium demands a nationwide contract with Elsevier, which must include fair prices for journal subscriptions, open access to all articles authored by researchers at German institutions and permanent access to full articles from all electronic publications from the publisher. Negotiations, in a new impasse, have already lasted a year. The consortium is also expected to lead negotiations with two other giants in this market: Springer and Wiley. (see at: www.chemistryworld.com/news/german-universities-take-on-elsevier-/3007807.article). It makes you think...
See also on the house's website:
