Iryna Kuchma has been managing the EIFL Open Access Programme (EIFL-OA) since 2008. Working in collaboration with libraries and library consortia in more than 60 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe, she advocates for open access to research results, facilitates the development and implementation of open science policies and infrastructures, and provides support and training.
An expert in open access, open data and open science, Iryna has published several works (see the full list), and contributed to recent reports including ‘Good Practice Advice for Managing Multilingual and non-English Language Content in Repositories’ by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) Task Force on Supporting Multilingualism and ‘Quality Evaluation Criteria, Best Practices, and Assessment Systems for Institutional Publishing Service Providers’ by the DIAMAS project.
Under Iryna's management, EIFL-OA’s many achievements include the establishment of more than 1,200 open access repositories and more than 4,100 open access journals in EIFL partner countries, opening up a wealth of new knowledge and research to the world. The programme has also supported the development of 189 institutional and 19 national open science policies in EIFL partner countries, and has trained over 307,300 librarians, researchers and policy-makers across the EIFL network. Read more about 20 years of the EIFL Open Access Programme.
Iryna sits on the boards of Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS) and the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD). In addition, she serves on the advisory board of Open Access Week. Iryna co-chairs the OpenAIRE Training and Support Standing Committee, and is a member of the Coalition Publi.ca International Committee and the DSpace Community Advisory Team. She was an Associate Editor for the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and a member of the DOAJ Council. She served on the UNESCO Open Science Advisory Committee as an international expert, as a Rapporteur for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) Skills and Training Working Group, and on the EOSC Association Data stewardship curricula and career paths Task Force.
In 2013, Iryna received the Electronic Publishing Trust (EPT) for Development Annual Award, in recognition of her ‘efforts in the furtherance of open access to scholarly publications in the developing and emerging countries’.
Before joining EIFL, Iryna worked as an Information Programme Manager at the International Renaissance Foundation (part of the Soros Foundations Network in Ukraine) and also coordinated the Arts and Culture Programme there.
Iryna completed the PhD programme at the Institute of Social Sciences, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and has an M.A. in Cultural Studies from the National University ‘Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’, Ukraine.
Languages: English, French, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian
More about the EIFL Open Access Programme