How do we achieve open access? | HEFCE blog

"Today marks the start of Open Access Week, the global annual event designed to promote Open Access (OA) as ‘a new norm in scholarship and research’. For those that are not aware, OA is simply a new way to talk about a very old idea: that new knowledge should be shared freely, for the benefit of all. The principle that researchers should do this is not new; for centuries researchers have published their work in academic journals and books to give it the greatest chance of being read, and by extension, of making a difference to the world. The need for OA arises from a glaring problem with this setup: the Internet allows unlimited copies of electronic documents to be freely circulated at essentially no cost, but scholarly publications cost substantial amounts of money to read and reuse. For public funders of research such as HEFCE this presents a very distressing problem. If the knowledge and insights being created with public money are locked away behind price and permission barriers, then money and opportunities are being wasted and the public is getting a bad deal ..."