From: Richard Poynder <[log in to unmask]> Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 13:23:51 +0000 The mission of UNESCO, which was founded in 1945, is to “contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.” An important plank in that mission is a commitment to help build inclusive and equitable knowledge societies. We should not be surprised, therefore, that UNESCO supports the open access movement, we should not be surprised that it was the first UN agency to adopt an OA policy, and we should not be surprised that it now makes its own publications open access. Today UNESCO’s OA repository (OAR) provides free access to over 500 of its own books, reports and articles in over 11 languages, and in recent years it has created a number of OA portals, directories, knowledge banks and Open Access indicators. But what does UNESCO believe its role in the open access movement should be, what does it view to be the current issues in open access, and what are its plan for open access going forward? An interview with Dr Indrajit Banerjee, Director of UNESCO’s Knowledge Societies Division can be accessed here: http://poynder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-open-access-interviews-dr-indrajit.html