Theory and practice of intellectual property
№ 1 / 2026

ISSN (Print) 2308-0361
ISSN (Online) 2519-2744

PDF (English)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33731/tpip.2026.1.5

Submitted     2026-01-29
Accepted      2026-02-17
Published      2026-03-12

Academic works made for hire: issues of copyright and open science

Anna Shtefan
Doctor Habilitated (Law), Associate Professor,
Head of the Copyright and Related Rights Department,
Intellectual Property Scientific Research Institute of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine,
Editor-in-Chief of the journal “Theory and practice of intellectual property”
Kyiv, Ukraine
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2382-4849

Abstract
As a general rule, in Ukraine, economic copyright in an academic work made for hire is transferred to the employer from the moment the work is created, and if the research is funded from budgetary funds, the transfer of copyright to the employer is mandatory. As a result, the author loses the opportunity to use the work in his or her scientific and teaching activities, publish it, or deposit it in repositories. This does not serve the interests of researchers and their employers and hinders the development of open science. To develop ways to improve the legal regime for academic works made for hire, the article analyses the right to secondary publication provided for in some EU Member States and concludes that its implementation in Ukraine is insufficient to balance the interests of authors, scientific and educational institutions, publishers, society, and the state. It is justified that copyright to academic works made for hire should be partially transferred to the employer, while the author should retain the right to use the work in their scientific and teaching activities, publish the work, and deposit preprints and postprints of the manuscript in repositories.

Keywords: academic work, work made for hire, open science, open access to academic works, secondary publication, copyright, intellectual property

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