The University of Caen Normandie is committed to making science more visible, accessible and transparent at a national and international level. Therefore, the National Plan for Open Science, launched on the 4th of July in 2018 by the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, makes open access mandatory for publications and for data resulting from project-funded research.
This plan comprises 3 major axes:
- generalising open access to publications
- structuring and opening up research data
- being part of a sustainable, European and international dynamic
With this plan, “France is committed to ensuring that the results of scientific research are open to all – researchers, companies and citizens – without hindrance, without delay, without payment.”
The University of Normandy’s support for the open access movement has been reflected since November 2017 in the HAL Normandie Université portal, whose ambition is to:
- improve the consultation and international visibility of Normandy publications
- freely disseminate scientific knowledge throughout Normandy
- ensure long-term archiving of submitted documents
- enable lecturers, doctoral students and research organisations to benefit from high quality services (export of bibliographic lists for reports, automatic feeding of laboratory websites, creation of resumes).
HAL Normandie Université also enables each research structure to create a collection, a showcase for the scientific production of its members. Since 2018, the University of Caen has supported the creation of a collection for each research structure. To achieve this goal, each laboratory is encouraged to appoint a “HAL referent”. This correspondent, trained by the HAL Normandie Université support unit to take charge of the collection, has the role of encouraging and supporting researchers’ HAL filings, and pointing out the training needs of members of their unit.
As of March 1rst, 2022, the HAL Normandie Université portal includes:
- more than 66,900 references and nearly 26,500 full-text repositories,
- 79 laboratory and research structure collections,
- 8 institutional collections, including the UNICAEN collection, with nearly 42,500 references and over 15,600 full-text repositories,
- 4 collections for Norse studies and the History of Normandy theses and dissertations.
To support the scientific community in Normandy, the support unit offers an annual training campaign on the HAL portal, as well as individualised discussion sessions to take stock of the researcher’s HAL ID, create their resume, help them to submit the full texts of their publications, and answer any questions on the challenges of open science.
For questions about the HAL Normandie Université open archive: hal@normandie-univ.fr or bibliotheque@unicaen.fr