Blog post by Pirjo Kangas
Across Europe, the movement to reclaim control over scholarly outputs is gaining momentum, including in Finland, where the Finnish University Libraries’ Network (FUN) launched a coordinated project to implement Rights Retention strategies (RRS).
As a result of this work, in early 2026, the majority of Finnish universities adopted a “prior licence” model for peer-reviewed articles as their institutional approach to RRS. The model ensures that researchers retain the rights to their work by default, such as the right to share it without embargoes or restrictive publisher interference.
FUN chose a coordinated approach because Finnish university libraries stand stronger together. Working together in consortia to share information and pursue common goals is a long-standing tradition among Finnish libraries.
In Finland, there is no national secondary publishing right. The Ministry of Education has encouraged this through its funding model, and the policies and established workflows for self-archiving are well established. Even though there is no formal Secondary Publication Right in law, around 90% of scientific journal articles are already made openly available through parallel publishing.1 However, this still left a share of publicly funded research trapped behind paywalls, and did not guarantee that researchers could retain rights over their own work.
From Idea to Implementation
The process of preparing the RRS model therefore started in 2023. The initial stages included benchmarking existing models, clarifying objectives, and developing a roadmap for the project. In 2025, FUN established a network for rights retention experts that ultimately defined shared practices.
FUN received support for its project from international networks, most notably from the Europe Rights Retention Community of Practice led by KR21 project partner SPARC Europe. Engaging with international networks enabled the sharing of experiences and provided evidence that the model works in practice.
The Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi) officially endorsed the shared model towards the end of 2025, and the policies were launched in January 2026, following each university’s own decision-making process.2 The Finnish model aligns with global best practices but is unique in terms of the strong cooperation between university libraries.3
Stakeholder discussion has continued since launch. Some critical voices in the scientific community have been raised, and library representatives have addressed these in public discussion.
Lessons Learned
The guiding principle was straightforward: RRS works only if it is easy by default and doesn’t add to the researcher’s administrative burden. The project produced practical communication materials, such as step-by-step guidance, FAQs, “what to do” checklists, and standard wording for co-authors, alongside shared materials and recommended workflows for libraries.
The Finnish co-operation model also demonstrates that institutional rights retention is not just a tool for the larger, well-funded universities. By aligning goals through a library consortium or other cooperative structures, even smaller institutions can implement RRS strategies. For example, collaborative work could make it possible to develop shared legal and communications infrastructure, as well as to form a united front for knowledge rights.
More broadly, RRS also supports national knowledge security. Independence from individual publishers helps to ensure that research remains accessible regardless of economic, technical, or political disruptions.4
Learn more about why you need to retain your rights!
A list of the Finnish universities that have adopted the RRS model in early 2026 can be found on the FUN website. In addition, Tampere University of Applied Sciences has also adopted the model.
4 September 2026
- Nykyri, Susanna & Lähdemäki, Riitta. 2026. Kirjastoyhteistyön voimasta:
Rights Retention Strategy Suomessa ja kansainvälisessä kehyksessä. Signum 1/2026. https://doi.org/10.25033/sig.180483 ↩︎ - FUN Finnish University Libraries’ Network. 2026. Prior Licence Model Introduced in Finnish Universities in 2026.
https://yliopistokirjastot.fi/en/prior-licence-model-introduced-in-finnish-universities-in-2026/ ↩︎ - Nykyri & Lähdemäki 2026, supra note 1 ↩︎
- Ibid ↩︎
