2025 International Open Access Week’s theme: “Who Owns Our Knowledge?”

October 20, 2025
This year’s International Open Access (OA) Week‘s (October 20-26th) theme “Who Owns Our Knowledge?” asks a pointed question about the present moment and how, in a time of disruption, communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce. It also challenges us to reflect on not only who has access to education and research but on how knowledge is created and shared, where it has come from, and whose voices are recognized and valued.

This theme builds on the conversations, events, and actions over the past two years that have focused on putting “Community over Commercialization.” During this time, we’ve made significant progress toward this end, but we cannot stop here. Therefore, we are encouraging VILNIUS TECH researchers share their research results openly by publishing them via Open Access route.

Publishing by Open Access model is one of the main measures enabling to significantly increase the visibility of the published research results. However, publishing by Open Access model usually requires an Article Processing Charge (APC) to be paid by the author.

The Lithuanian Research Library Consortium (LMBA) has directly or through membership in EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) organization signed agreements with international publishers, which not only provide full access to the publishers' subscribed content, but also allow the authors of the participating institutions to publish articles in the publishers' journals in an Open Access manner without paying APCs.

These agreements with publishers allow authors not only to avoid the bureaucratic and financial burden of APC payments, but also provide published results with greater visibility and, accordingly, citation opportunities, and also ensure compliance with project funders' requirements to publish project results in an open access manner while maintaining copyright since all articles published through transformative agreements are published under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0) licenses.

VILNIUS TECH authors can publish their articles in open access free-of-charge in 8 international publishers journals.

More information about free-of-charge open access publishing opportunities valid to VILNIUS TECH authors is provided in the Library’s webpage Scientific Communication section Open Access -> Free-of-charge Open Access Publishing possibilities

We would also like to remind that VILNIUS TECH community members can utilize the APC discount offers for publishing in sources from several international publishers, negotiated by EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) organization.

Important! Only corresponding authors affiliated to an institution which has signed an agreement with a publisher can publish open access for free or with discounted APCs. The authors must use institutional e-mails.
The terms and the course of application may differ depending on the publisher, so authors are recommended to delve into the individual agreements or discount proposals before submitting their manuscripts for publishing.

More information about APC discounts valid to VILNIUS TECH authors is provided in the Library’s webpage Scientific Communication section Open Access -> APC Discounts

The list of all journals in which Lithuanian authors can publish in open access free-of-charge or with discounted APCs, can be downloaded here >>>

The list includes and can be sorted by the journal represented subject fields, proposal types, their application conditions, journals‘ publishing models, language, regular APC costs,  Journal Impact Factor (JIF) values (if present), ISSN numbers and links to the journals home-pages.

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We are pleased to present the new VILNIUS TECH electronic publication „Vilnius: nuo laukinių miškų iki Rojaus sodo“ („Vilnius: From Wild Forests to the Garden of Eden“), edited by Associate Professor Giedrė Ingrida Laukaitytė-Malžinskienė of the Department of Urban Design. The publication showcases the outcomes of the autumn semester project carried out by third-year students in the Landscape Architecture programme at the VILNIUS TECH Faculty of Architecture. The project comprises a comprehensive analysis of a historic area of Vilnius and its surrounding context, the development of a territorial strategy, and individual proposals for the preservation and future use of the site. “The title of the project – Vilnius: From Wild Forests to the Garden of Eden – reflects the clear conceptual framework that guided our analytical work. We explored the notion of wildness in Vilnius in relation to the city’s spiritual and cultural development. As future landscape architects, we examined how natural landscape elements, urban transformation, and political processes have shaped the evolution of Vilnius’s cultural landscape. Saviour’s Hill, the Garden of Eden, Rojaus Street, Blind Alley, Schwarz Tavern, the School for Noble Girls, K. Brzostowski’s golden heart, mysterious wells, the communities of the Jesuits, Missionaries, and Visitandine Order, the 1863 Uprising, Russification, Sovietisation, and other historical factors have all influenced the territory we investigated. The study area is located between Rasų, Subačiaus, Vitebsko, and Drujos streets. It includes the present-day grounds of the Visitandine Monastery and Church, the adjacent hospice, the grounds of the American School (occupying the site of former historic gardens), Vilnius Correctional Facility (also located within the former historic gardens), and the historical territory of the former Garden of Eden, which currently remains open and undeveloped. Each student develops and presents an individual interpretation of their own ‘Paradise’, while the collective outcome of the group project lies in identifying the historical constants of the site and revealing the strengths and future potential of this currently underused territory. The project involved analysing the historical development of the site, changes in topography, and vegetation patterns. Drawing on historical maps, texts, and works of art, we traced the relationships between historic buildings and former gardens, documented both surviving and lost heritage elements, explored patterns of life across different historical periods, and examined visual connections, compositional axes, existing and former urban structures, as well as concepts of ecclesiastical heritage — all of which are presented in this publication,” writes Associate Professor Giedrė I. Laukaitytė-Malžinskienė in the introductory section of the publication. Electronic book (in Lithuanian)  >>>  
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