Open access initiatives in European universities: analysis of their implementation and the visibility of publications in the YERUN network

In this paper, the authors analyse the open access (OA) output of the universities in YERUN (the Young European Research Universities Network) and their institutional documentation of their own OA situation. The period from 2009 to 2019 was selected for the bibliometric analysis. The full register of publications for the YERUN universities was downloaded from Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection, and a set of bibliometric analyses was performed to provide an evidence-based response to the research questions (example: Do YERUN universities follow publication patterns similar to those of their countries of origin? How does OA affect the impact of scientific publications? What types of OA are used at each institution? Is there a relationship between specialization and OA?). The bibliometric analyses looked at four dimensions: activity and context indicators; collaboration indicators; specialization indicators; OA types and impact indicators. The document analysis included variables related to infrastructure, specific support actions, institutional policies and OA information availability. The paper concludes that the institutional measures and actions fostering OA identified on universities’ websites bear a correspondence with the bibliometric data. YERUN institutions have higher rates of OA publications than do their host countries, with a clear preference for the green route. OA publications are systematically more cited than non-OA publications, and green OA has more impact than do other types of OA. Also, no relationship was found between specialization and OA publication rate.