Science to the People - The Berkeley Science Review

"As science becomes both politicized and mistrusted, transparency in scientific research and publication becomes increasingly necessary. Traditionally, scientists have published in journals that cannot be accessed without a subscription, making access difficult for readers not affiliated with universities—even when the research was funded with federal grant money. One movement towards transparency in science is called open access. In this model, papers are published in freely available journals or are made available through shared servers.

At UC Berkeley, the UC Presidential Open Access Policy makes it mandatory for all federally-funded UC researchers to give free access to their research publications. However, many challenges remain in instituting this policy, not to mention the larger-scale barriers to widespread adoption of open access publishing in the sciences. For one, publishing in an open access journal is often more expensive than publishing in traditional journals. To this end, the University provides funds to the authors to cover article processing charges through the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative."