In this article, Tetiana Yaroshenko, EIFL Country Coordinator in Ukraine, traces the history and growth of open access and open science in the country over the years. She shines a light on how the international scientific community, including publishers, continued to support Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022, significantly expanding access to knowledge and enabling Ukrainian scholars to continue to research and publish. 

Yaroshenko describes how the partnership between Ukrainian libraries, research institutes and EIFL has resulted in free access to scientific e-resources from 24 publishers. In addition, through EIFL’s agreements with publishers, Ukrainian authors have the opportunity to publish in open access in hybrid or fully open journals for free or with discounts on article processing fees (APCs). 

She writes about how  EIFL's support for workshops to raise awareness about open access has led to the establishment of many open access journals, open repositories, open access and open science policies, and the development of educational courses and MOOCs on open science. EIFL’s advocacy for the reform of copyright legislation, as well as for Ukraine's ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty (2023), has also contributed to open access to knowledge.

Publication/media outlet: Weekly Mirror (a leading newspaper in Ukraine)

Article title: Science without borders: How Ukrainian researchers gain access to world knowledge during war

Date published: 20 - 26 October 2025 

EIFL project/programme: EIFL Open Access and EIFL Copyright and Libraries programmes 

Language of item: Ukrainian 

Read now: Read the article as published by Weekly Mirror or download a PDF version.