Project ROAL

Report on Open Access in Law (ROAL)

Report on Open Access in Law (ROAL) is a one-year project funded by swissuniversities with the aim of systematically analysing the current publication landscape in the legal sciences in Switzerland. The focus is on long-form publications such as commemorative publications, commentaries, textbooks, edited volumes and monographs. The project reveals which factors hinder open access to legal publications – and which favour it.

To achieve this, the project combines two central elements: a data-based analysis of legal publications and qualitative interviews with all key stakeholders.  All relevant perspectives and views are included – in addition to legal research, these include deaneries, publishers, law firms, courts, administrations, funding organisations and the open science community in the field of law. The result is a freely accessible report that paints a comprehensive picture of the legal publishing landscape in Switzerland and the attitudes of the various stakeholder groups towards Open Access. It also serves as a basis for further measures to promote Open Access in the legal sciences. However, the implementation of the measures takes place outside the ROAL project framework.

This project is supported by swissuniversitites, the umbrella organisation of the Swiss universities.