Public Understanding of Science: Open access to Public Understanding of Science

"This post is by the Public Understanding of Science editor-in-chief, Professor Martin Bauer, and managing editor, Dr Sue Howard. The PCST-12 conference in Florence (17th-20th April 2012) raised the issue of open access, a hot topic at the plenary session celebrating 20 years of Public Understanding of Science, and beyond. ... Sharing specialist knowledge and critical reflection is our objective and we need to find practical and cost effective ways to do this. At the moment, PUS is a subscription journal. Libraries and individuals have to pay to give access to readers. With the Public Library of Science (PLoS) model of 'open access', the cost is transferred to authors, who pay to publish with readers viewing the paper for free. What we want to know is: what is the fairest system, bearing in mind the context of PUS? Let us have a debate online - tweet us, comment, email - we are keen to have your input on whether our concerns about discrimination are irrelevant or empirically unfounded. Let's debate the following motion: PUS believes that paid for open access will discriminate against authors from the developing world."