At a special ceremony at the Wits SPARC Open Access Seminar held at the Professional Development Hub, Wits campus, on 9 November 2012, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Loyiso Nongxa, signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access in the Sciences and Humanities. Although Wits embarked on an Open Access road some years ago, today, it made a firm commitment to promote and embrace Open Access research and scholarly communication, via Open Access publishing ("Gold Route") and self-archiving of publications ("Green Route") in Wits Institutional Repository on DSpace (WIReDSpace)
Wits joins the many research institutions and universities in Africa and around the world that are committed to promoting the Open Access paradigm to gain the most benefit for science and society. Apart from sharing its wealth of research and other valuable knowledge, Wits will also enjoy more visibility as it showcases its research on the global stage. Wits aspires to be a leading research-intensive university firmly embedded in the top 100 world universities by 2022 and Open Access will play an important and crucial role in achieving its Mission and Strategic Objectives.