Photo courtesy of Chris Yakimov CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Global Campaign for Open Access Climate Research
Paper Pledge for the Planet is a global campaign to make climate change research openly available via institutional repositories like cIRcle.
Launched in October 2024 in celebration of International Open Access Week, the Paper Pledge is a joint collaboration of COAR (Confederation of Open Access Repositories), EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries), the Open Climate Campaign, and other regional and institutional partners.
The goal is to provide permanent open access to 3,500 climate change articles published in the last five years that are currently closed access but can be made openly available. 20 articles have been identified as having a first author affiliated with UBC.
cIRcle Takes the Pledge
Beginning in December 2024, cIRcle has contacted authors of the 20 identified climate research papers with a current response rate of 40%.
As of mid-February, cIRcle has extended the campaign to identify and archive additional UBC-authored climate research papers in the weeks leading up to and just after Earth Day. The focus remains on papers that have been published in the last five years that are currently behind paywalls but can be self-archived.
This work is resource-intensive and we are a small, busy team but, the good news is, you can help!
Join the Campaign!
Are you a UBC faculty member, researcher, or postdoctoral student publishing climate change research? No need to wait for us to email you!
Visit our Submissions page for details on adding your work to cIRcle.
If you’re new to depositing research articles, consider starting with the UBC Author’s Guide to Self-Archiving or visit the Scholarly Communications site to learn more about open access and related UBC Library supports.
Spread the word by sharing a link to this post or use the project blurb in your own communications channels.
Further Reading
Pledging Your Paper for the Planet: Repositories as a tool for climate action. Dr. Monica Granados. Closing Keynote Open Repositories 2024. July 2, 2024.
Metrics report for milestone 1.3 of the National Action Plan on Open Government 2022–2024 – Making climate change science more open and accessible. Environment and Climate Change Canada. Accessed February 13, 2025.