International Open Access Week 2026
19 – 25 Oct 2026
International Open Access Week is a yearly event that promotes Open Access (OA) and encourages the academic and research community to learn more about it, fostering participation and sharing of knowledge.
SPARC defines Open Access as:
“The free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open access ensures that anyone can access and use these results – to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives.”
This Year’s Theme: The Cost of Knowledge
This year’s International Open Access Week theme poses deep questions around the escalating costs of accessing and sharing knowledge. Why do these costs continue to rise? In addition to financial implications, how do environmental and human costs contribute to the rapidly changing environment where information is created, shared, and sustained? These questions challenge a system where knowledge is often treated as a commercial commodity rather than a public good, raising barriers for researchers and learners worldwide.
At HKBU Library, we are actively working to build a more open and equitable future. As we strive for a world that is open for all, we build on our foundation of expanding resources that are open for our community. Below, we highlight the services that empower our scholars to share their work globally, from our institutional repository to transformative publishing agreements, and the collaborative efforts, like Interlibrary Loan and consortium partnerships, that provide the widest possible access to scholarly resources. Explore these initiatives to see how we are contributing to a more sustainable system of broadly sharing knowledge.
Sharing HKBU Scholarship with the World: Building an Open Commons
HKBU Scholars
Showcase Your Research. Share It Globally.
HKBU Scholars is our institutional repository, transforming the research of faculty and students into a global public good through enhancing access to HKBU research. Research in HKBU Scholars is preserved, discoverable, and, when permissible by the publisher’s policy, freely accessible to a worldwide audience, bypassing traditional paywalls and subscription costs. This service increases the impact and visibility of scholarship, with almost 16,000 articles available OA, and contributes directly to a commons of shared knowledge for all.
Open Access (OA) & Transformative Agreements (TAs)
Publish Open Access without Paying an APC
Publishing Open Access often involves high Article Processing Charges (APCs), a significant cost for researchers. The Library mitigates this financial barrier through a growing number of OA publishing agreements with major publishers. These agreements allow HKBU authors to publish their work OA in selected journals without cost, supporting the transition toward a more sustainable and equitable scholarly publishing model while increasing the visibility and impact of HKBU research. At the time of writing, 872 published articles are supported by Transformative Agreements.
E-Journals @ HKBU
Launching a scholarly journal often comes with significant costs for hosting and platform management. Our E-Journals @ HKBU hosting service removes this financial barrier by providing a publishing platform free for HKBU faculty and research centres. We empower our community to create and manage their own open access journals using the robust, open-source Open Journal System (OJS), ensuring that knowledge created at HKBU can be shared with the world. The Open Access articles published in these journals have been viewed or downloaded just over 1,571,000 times.
Digital Scholarship: Your Data Tells a Story
Let’s Partner to Bring Your Research to Life!
Digital scholarship brings research to life, but the technical costs and expertise required can be a major barrier. Our Digital Scholarship Services, supported by our unique Digital Scholarship Grant, provide the funding and hands-on support to transform your research ideas into dynamic open projects. These 55 digital scholarship projects have received much attention – currently at 7,712,632 webpage views. From award-winning data visualizations to interactive maps and 3D models, we help you create and share new forms of knowledge that are accessible to all.
Digital Scholarship Symposium (DSS)
Don’t miss our annual Fall Digital Scholarship Symposium, coming up on 29 October 2026. This free symposium showcases how researchers and Library staff work together to transform research into dynamic, open digital resources. Led by a keynote on proactive strategy in a changing information landscape, the event is a forum for sharing the methods and challenges of making knowledge engaging and accessible.
Chinese Medicine Databases
Developed in-house by the Library in collaboration with the School of Chinese Medicine, the Chinese Medicine Databases provide extensive visual, scientific, and historical data on traditional Chinese medicine, advancing traditional Chinese medicine research and teaching with modern information technology.
As We Strive for Open for All, We Build on Open within Our Community
While research, digital, and information resources are increasingly more open, access to numerous journals, books, and other information resources is very costly. To maximise funds and provide the best service possible to our community, we partner and collaborate with other libraries.
Resource Sharing Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
We Get it For You
No library can afford to own everything, but the cost of knowledge should not be a barrier to your research. Our Interlibrary Loan service bridges the gaps in our collection by sourcing articles and book chapters from a global network of partner libraries. This collaborative system ensures our students and faculty can get the materials they need efficiently and without personal cost.
JULAC Collaborations
Strength in Community: Partnering to Reduce Costs
The escalating cost of e-resources is a challenge that all academic libraries face. We tackle this by collaborating with our peer institutions through the Joint University Librarians Advisory Committee (JULAC). By negotiating and subscribing to key databases and e-journal packages as a consortium, we leverage our collective strength to manage costs effectively and maximize access for the entire Hong Kong academic community.
Last updated: 09 October 2026