The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) is a public statement of principles relating to open access to the research literature, which was released to the public on February 14, 2002. It arose from a conference convened in Budapest by the Open Society Institute on December 1–2, 2001 to promote open access which at that time was also known as Free Online Scholarship. This small gathering of individuals has been recognised as one of the major defining events of the open access movement. As of 2021, the text of the initiative had been translated to 13 languages. On the 10th anniversary of the initiative in 2012, the ends and means of the original initiative were reaffirmed and supplemented with a set of concrete recommendations for achieving open access in the next 10 years. Content Initiative The opening sentence of the Budapest Open Access Initiative encapsulates what the open access movement is all about, and what its potential is: Definition The document contains one of the most widely used definitions of open access, which has subsequently been reaffirmed as the definition of open access, 10 years after it was first published: Strategy and funding As of 2001, the BOAI has recommended two complementary strategies in order to achieve open access to scientific literature. First, scholars should follow the practice of self-archiving which is when authors deposit a copy of their own text to open archives on the internet. Preferably these archives should conform to the standards of the Open Archives Initiative and make it easy for users to find the texts. Second, scholars should launch new online open access journals and help other periodicals to adapt the principles of open access. The initiative was sponsored with a US$3 million grant from the Open Society Institute. Signatories The 16 original signatories of the Budapest Open Access Initiative included some of the world's early leaders in the open access movement: Leslie Chan of Bioline International Darius Cuplinskas, Melissa Hagemann, Rima Kupryte of Open Society Institute István Rév, Open Society Institute, Open Society Archives Michael Eisen of the Public Library of Science Fred Friend († April 23, 2014) of University College London Yana Genova of Next Page Foundation Jean-Claude Guédon of the Université de Montréal Stevan Harnad of the University of Southampton/Université du Québec à Montréal Rick Johnson of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) Manfredi La Manna of the Electronic Society for