Prof. Tinatin Bochorishvili Deputy Director General

1. Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation Prof. Tinatin Bochorishvili Deputy Director General Regional Consultation on “Open Access to Scientific Information and Research – Concept and Policies” Minsk, 2012

2. Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (SRNSF) was established in 2010 merging two main science funding entities: the Georgia National Science Foundation and the Rustaveli Foundation for Georgian Studies, Humanities and Social Sciences.

3. Georgia is one of a three Post-Soviet countries using granting system Grant Award System Grants are awarded based on transparent competition An essential step towards science funding reform! Up to 3000 foreign high-level peer-reviewers are engaged in the merit-base and impartial evaluation of projects submitted to foundation

4. ►Supporting research Priorities of the Foundation ►Encouraging youngscientists ► Strengthening international cooperation in scientific research ►Popularization of science

5. The Process of Evaluation All programs of the foundation are implemented through the calls for project proposals Scientific Board Projects are approved by Board Project proposal Reviewed projects Aplicant Reviewer Peer Reviewer Grantee

6. Openness for Cooperation

7. International Joint Calls

8. At modern stage of the development of society search for scholarly information becomes possible by means of traditional printed sources as well as electronic means. In order to accelerate scientific progress, it is necessary for the scientific information base to become more accessible for the widest possible audience, teaching staff, researchers, students and other potential readers, who has no access to permanent research libraries.

9. Updating the Global Open Access Portal information False information: There are 63higher education institutes in Georgia, with 3research institutes: George Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, Microbiology and Virology; Georgian International Academy; Georgian National Center of Manuscripts. – Updated information (September 2012): There are 58higher education institutes in Georgia, with 4 research institutes:  1. National Centre of Manuscripts http://www.manuscript.ge 2. I. Beritashvili Center of Experimental Biomedicine http://www.lifescience.org.ge 3. G. Eliava Institute of Bacteriophages, Microbiology and Virology http://www.eliava-institute.org 4. Levan Samkharauli National Forensics Bureau http://www.forensics.ge

10. DOAJ indexes only 3 journals from Georgia But I think that there are some other journals which satisfy DOAJ requirements. They must be added to the list. For Instance: Rustaveli Foundation has funded Electronic, Bilingual Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Journal “Spekali”. The papers are free for everybody.

11. Electronic Scientific Journals Rustaveli Foundation introduced the Grant Competition for Electronic Scientific Journals in 2009. The goal of the competition was to promote research through creation of electronic versions of scientific journals that correspond to international standards, provision of financial support of publication and journal’s international accessibility.

13. GEORGIAN ELECTRONIC DICTIONARIES The Georgian Electronic Dictionaries Grant Competition goal was to develop a base of Georgian electronic dictionaries, based on modern technological achievements. Financing was available in the following directions: explanatory dictionary for Georgian literary language, special explanatory dictionary, general and special translation dictionaries, Georgian language dialectic dictionaries, Georgian literature thesaurus, biographical dictionaries, and foreign words dictionaries. The dictionaries are free for everybody.

14. What are the key national projects and initiatives? The National Parliamentary Library has four electronic collections, namely: Catalogues of National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, Georgian Digital Collection of Theses and Printed Books, Digital Library of Civil Education and Digital Library of Georgian Literature. These are already accessible through The European Library portal. Currently two open access repositories have been set up at the National Parliamentary Library and at the Georgian Library Association. Mestia (one of the highest villages in Europe) Public Library in Georgia became an EIFL-PLIP grantee

15. What are the potential barriers for further adoption? • Limited OA activity • No OA mandate • No law • Lack of trained persons • Lack of funding

16. What are the desired developments? • Creation of the Open Access Strategy for Georgia • Creation of a working group (responsible for implementing concrete action plan) • Dissemination of information • Sending an official letter to the Ministry and the Rustaveli Foundation from the UNESCO headquarters concerning the new decisions to support OA initiatives.

17. Which collaborative and collective efforts could contribute to advance OA in the region? Regional cooperation of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan

18. Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundationwww.rustaveli.org.ge1 M. Aleksidze Street, Tbilisi 0193, Georgiabochorishvili@rustaveli.org.ge