Are the doors finally opening on academic research? Moves in the UK and elsewhere in Europe suggest research papers that stem from publicly funded studies could be made open access.
In the UK, the government announced plans on Monday to make all such research openly available within two years.
The plan focuses on a "gold" model, in which research backers such as universities and the UK research councils pay publishing fees up front to journals, typically ?2000 per article. The published paper is then made available free of charge to everyone in the world.
Research Councils UK, which will manage the transition, estimates that the up-front payments will cost 1 per cent of its ?3-billion research budget, and has ring-fenced money to meet the costs. A spokeswoman said she expected the European Union to announce similar plans in the near future. "We're leading the world on this," she said.
In the US, the National Science Foundation says it is still developing a strategy on open access, but voiced support for the concept. "NSF applauds efforts by science funding agencies to accelerate the dissemination of publicly funded research results," said a spokeswoman.
A cheaper "green" model of open access has been used by the US National Institutes of Health since 2008. All papers produced as a result of NIH-funded research go into a central, public repository six months to a year after publication in a journal.
"The disadvantage is the delay to access, but the green approach means less change to existing practice," says Michael Carroll of Washington College of Law in Washington DC, who founded the lobby group Access2research. The group recently sent a petition of 25,000 signatures to the White House demanding open access for results of all publicly funded research.
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