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• SURFshare Open Access Award for Saskia Woutersen and Eelco Ferwerda

On Tuesday 2 February 2010, Saskia Woutersen (University of Amsterdam) and Eelco Ferwerda (publisher at Amsterdam University Press) were each presented with the SURFshare Open Access Award. The awards were presented at the Open Access seminar in Amsterdam.

What is the point of the SURFshare Open Access Award?
A lot of hard work has been done in the course of 2009 – SURF’s “Open Access Year” – to ensure more Open Access to Dutch research results. The SURFshare Award is SURF’s way of honouring two people who have made outstanding efforts in this regard over the course of the year.

“Strategic” and “practical” awards
There are two awards. One is for someone whose efforts have had a strategic focus, for example by means of a significant policy development or a promising result. The other goes to someone who has made outstanding practical efforts as regards the successful implementation of a (small-scale) application.

There were a total of 14 nominees.

The winners were announced by Marjan Vernooy (programme manager for the SURFshare programme) during the successful Open Access Seminar on 2 February to mark the end of Open Access Year.

Prize-winners
The SURFshare Open Access Award 2009 in the “Strategic” category was awarded to Eelco Ferweda, a publisher with Amsterdam University Press (AUP) and coordinator of the OAPEN project (Open Access Publishing in European Networks).

The jury’s report says that “The jury looked for someone working in a broader field than just his own institution or even his own country. They took an open-minded approach to identifying someone whose work was really out of the ordinary, and found that person in a field where you would not really expect it, namely publishing. Eelco Ferweda has done a great deal of valuable work on developing an Open Access publishing model for academic books in the context of the OAPEN project (which is financed by the EU). As the publisher of online projects at AUP, he has also contributed to AUP quickly being recognised as one of the main pioneers in the field of Open Access books.

Eelco deserves the Award for extending Open Access publication to books, an exciting international project, an initiative that creates a new Open Access publishing model for disciplines for which this is definitely an innovative development.”

The SURFshare Open Access Award 2009 in the “Practical” category goes to Saskia Woutersen-Windhouwer, electronic publishing specialist and repository manager at the University of Amsterdam.

The jury report says that “Saskia Woutersen-Windhouwer is an untiring advocate of Open Access, promoting this ideal as a specialist in electronic publishing at the University of Amsterdam and also outside the University, for example in SURF’s Open Access Roadmap Taskforce and the Open Access Working Party organised by the libraries associated with Dutch research universities (united in the UKB). Saskia also pursues the goal of Open Access internationally in the context of the European DRIVER programme. In 2009, she arranged and implemented a number of Open Access ‘grassroots’ projects. and during the Open Access week in October she took a successful ‘one woman roadshow’ to all the various faculties of the University of Amsterdam.”

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