On THURSDAY, 23 October 2025, SETU Libraries will host the SCOIR Roadshow Seminar in the Luke Wadding Learning Hub (11:00am–1:00pm).
This is to be an in-person event, and you will have to register at the link below this post.
Learn how a proposed new law will make sure publicly funded research is openly available, reduce barriers for researchers, and strengthen Ireland’s open access policies.
What is SCOIR?
SCOIR (Secondary rights, Copyright, Open access, Institutional policies, Rights retention) is a national project funded by the National Open Research Forum (NORF). Its aim is to make it easier for researchers to keep the rights to their work and share it openly.
Right now, researchers often sign publishing agreements that give copyright to journals or publishers. This can make it difficult to upload their work to open repositories or share it widely. SCOIR is working on a solution.
A New Law for Open Research
At the heart of the project is a draft Research Outputs and Open Access Bill (2024). If adopted, this law would:
Require universities and research employers to make publicly funded research available in open repositories.
Give researchers, funders, and institutions clear legal rights to deposit their work, no matter what their publishing agreement says.
Ensure research is made available in line with FAIR principles – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
In simple terms, it means that if public money supports the research, the public gets access to it.
Why is this good news?
More access for everyone – students, researchers, policymakers, businesses, and the public.
Less red tape for researchers – they won’t have to fight with publishers to share their work.
Stronger national policy – Ireland w
ill be in step with international best practice for open research.
Clarity and fairness – clear rules about who can make research available and how.
Speakers at the event
Dr Eoin O’Dell (School of Law, Trinity College Dublin; Chair, Copyright Reform Commission)
Andrew Simpson (Associate Librarian, Education, Research and Clinical Support, RCSI)
- Niamh Brennan (Programme Manager, Research Information Systems & Services at Trinity College Dublin)
Both are leading experts in copyright, law, and open access policy.
Who should attend?
This event is for researchers, staff, students, policy-makers, and anyone interested in open access. It’s a chance to hear directly from the people shaping Ireland’s future research policies and to ask questions about what this will mean in practice.
What Is the Draft Research Outputs and Open Access Bill?
This draft law proposes that publicly funded research in Ireland must be made freely available online in trusted open access repositories.
Universities (as employers) will be required to deposit these research outputs.
Researchers and funders are also allowed to do so.
The goal: ensure research is FAIR – Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
It applies to both traditional and non-traditional research outputs, but does not override copyright — instead, it adds a right to share.
Contracts can’t override this law – if they try, those clauses are void.
This is a key step toward achieving 100% Open Access to Irish research by 2030, a national goal backed by NORF and supported by SETU.
To view the legislation, visit the SCOIR project site at: https://scoir.moodlecloud.com/