David Willetts: Publicly-funded research to be made open access

abernard102@gmail.com 2012-07-16

Summary:

“The government is to make sure that publicly-funded research is made freely available to the public, starting as soon as late 2013, Universities and Science Minister David Willetts announced on 16 July. From late 2013 or early 2014, publicly-funded research will be made much more widely available. The aim is to provide ‘more opportunities for research and development across a range of sectors’ and to ‘support the commercial exploitation of research’, contributing to the government's economic growth agenda. In a statement, the government has revealed that it will accept a number of recommendations from a report on open access by Dame Janet Finch. These include: moving to deliver open access through a model where article-processing charges are paid upfront to cover the cost of publication; introducing walk-ins for the general public to gain access to global research publications via public libraries and extending the licenses of access enjoyed by universities to high technology businesses for a ‘modest’ charge. This move has been a response to mounting tensions which have arisen because major academic publishers including Elsevier, Springer and Wiley-Blackwell charge high subscription charges, which libraries and other publicly-funded bodies are foced to buy in large bundles for hundreds of thousands of pounds. These publishers have managed to maintain impressive profit margins-- Elsevier's was 36 percent (making £724m on revenues of £2bn in 2010), despite the fact that most other publishing companies have found their business models severely disrupted by the web. Willetts said: ‘Removing paywalls that surround taxpayer funded research will have real economic and social benefits. It will allow academics and businesses to develop and commercialise their research more easily and herald a new era of academic discovery. This development will provide exciting new opportunities and keep the UK at the forefront of global research to drive innovation and growth.’ Professor Doug Kell, RCUK Champion for Research and Information Management said: ‘Widening access to the outputs of research currently published in journals has the potential to contribute substantially to furthering the progress of scientific and other research, ensuring that the UK continues to be a world leader in these fields. I am delighted that, together, the Research Councils have been able both to harmonise and to make significant changes to their policies, ensuring that more people have access to cutting edge research that can contribute to both economic growth in our knowledge economy and the wider wellbeing of the UK...”

Link:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-07/16/research-open-access-david-willetts

Updated:

08/16/2012, 06:08

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » abernard102@gmail.com

Tags:

oa.new oa.gold oa.policies oa.licensing oa.government oa.elsevier oa.libraries oa.uk oa.funders oa.fees oa.profits oa.rcuk oa.recommendations oa.springer oa.wiley-blackwell oa.finch_report oa.libre oa.journals

Authors:

abernard

Date tagged:

07/16/2012, 21:20

Date published:

07/16/2012, 22:01