Project SOAP (Study of Open Access Publishing)

"This project runs from 1st March 2009 to 28th February 2011 and is co-ordinated by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The SOAP consortium represents key stakeholders such as publishers (BioMed Central Ltd (BMC), Sage Publications Ltd (SAGE) UK and Springer Science+Business Media Deutschland GmbH (SSBM)), funding agencies (Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) UK), libraries (Max Planck Digital Library of the Max Planck Society) and a broad spectrum of research disciplines. It aims to study the new open access business models that have emerged as a result of the shift from print to digital documents and inform the European Commission and all stakeholders about the risks, opportunities and essential requirements for a smooth transition to open access publishing."