"Open Access Kick-off Meeting" hosted by Springer Nature Publishing House and in cooperation with TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM was held in Ankara on May 7, 2024. Academics from 23 research universities and experts from YÖK and TÜBİTAK attended the meeting. At the meeting, where the Springer Nature-TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM open access agreement was examined in detail on the basis of open science-open access, goals, expectations and problems were discussed.

In his opening presentation, TUBITAK ULAKBIM Director Mehmet Mirat Satoğlu talked about the progress of open science and open access initiatives in the world and in our country, and the goals for the coming period. Satoğlu also talked about the effects of open access and the services and contributions of TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM to researchers in the light of transformation agreements.

In the rest of the meeting, officials from Springer Nature Publishing House made presentations. In the last part of the meeting, Zafer Kanbur from the EKUAL group talked about the history of the EKUAL project and its importance for the country; details of the transformative agreement with Springer Nature; article selection criteria, article approval system and open access statistics of research universities.

The Open Access Kick-off Meeting was successfully completed with a question and answer session. Approximately 55 people from the academic community attended the meeting, which was broadcast live on TUBITAK ULAKBIM TV YouTube channel, and contributed to the interactive realization of the meeting by sharing their views on relevant issues.

The "Read & Publish" agreement signed between TÜBİTAK ULAKBİM and Springer Nature became active on January 01, 2024.