Civil Society

Centre for Civil Society advances social change through public policy. Our work in education, livelihood, and policy training promotes choice and accountability across the private and public sectors. To translate policy into practice, we engage with policy and opinion leaders through research, pilot projects and advocacy. Civil society organizations also known as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are critical actors in the advancement of universal values around human rights, the environment, labour standards and anti-corruption. As global market integration has advanced, their role has gained particular importance in aligning economic activities with social and environmental priorities. Civil society organizations have been an integral part of the Global Compact since its creation. Their perspectives, expertise and partnership-building capabilities are indispensable in the evolution and impact of the Global Compact.The Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 comes into force today, which limits the amount charities can spend on campaigning in the lead-up to the general election. Open access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers (including price barriers) from accessing scholarly work. There are two parallel roads towards open access: Open Access articles and self-archiving. Open Access articles are immediately, freely available on their Web site, a model mostly funded by charges paid by the author (usually through a research grant). The alternative for a researcher is self-archiving (i.e., to publish in a traditional journal, where only subscribers have immediate access, but to make the article available on their personal and/or institutional Web sites (including so-called repositories or archives)), which is a practice allowed by many scholarly journals. Open Access raises practical and policy questions for scholars, publishers, funders, and policymakers alike, including what the return on investment is when paying an article processing fee to publish in an Open Access articles, or whether investments into institutional repositories should be made and whether self-archiving should be made mandatory, as contemplated by some funders.