Toespraak van staatssecretaris Dekker bij de internationale workshop over Open Access | Toespraak | Rijksoverheid.nl

"Welcome to the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, NWO in The Hague. We're here today to exchange views on the need for open access. But before we start our discussion, I'd like to tell you a little bit more about the Netherlands ... Well, maybe that isn’t such a big deal for just one article. But for the teachers who wants to know more about the latest innovation on didactics. And for the starting entrepreneur who wants to access knowledge on making his company cradle-to-cradle. Or for the doctor who needs new solutions to tackle infectious diseases, cut infant mortality and reduce malnutrition in the world’s poorest places. All these people are missing out on the research that the scientists that you are funding work so hard on. In spite of the fact that the public pays for this research. And they pay for the subscriptions to professional journals on top of that. But at the end of the day, they themselves don’t benefit from any of this. This closed-circuit system slows down innovation. It hampers competition. It puts up barriers for knowledge sharing, at a time that knowledge sharing is of vital importance. Knowledge paid for with public money, must be available to that very same public. Here in the Netherlands, knowledge institutes and universities have joined forces to make agreements with academic publishers that promote Open Access. The Association of Dutch Universities has come up with new open access models, after tough negotiations with the big publishing houses. NWO’s funding conditions demand that research results are directly accessible without any embargoes. And they make sure academics comply with these conditions as well. So we’re taking big steps in the right direction. But the Netherlands is only 1 player on the global market. We can only succeed in making science accessible – to everyone and everywhere – if all of us get together and make it happen! We need each other to get this done. We need scientists who only publish open access. And this is where you come in, as they need you to achieve this ..."