UK to open floodgates on open access science publishing

“A matter of weeks after the UK Government-commissioned Finch Report recommended a move to embrace open access science publishing, the Government has responded with plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014. The move is a huge endorsement of the open access model, which numerous countries are moving towards on a more piecemeal  basis. But, as the Finch Report the transition to a system where science paper authors pay fees to cover publication of their papers in peer-reviewed journals rather than journals charging subscriptions, will come at a cost that appears as though it will be funded out of the existing UK public science budget. There will be much apprehension among scientists over where budgets will be raided to fund the new policy, but overall, the announcement has been greeted positively in the UK... The policy shift in the UK will open up access to the work of New Zealand scientists by default as New Zealanders are regularly co-authors on papers paid for by UK Research Councils funds. But hopefully it will also lead to some introspection about our own open access policies here. Discussion of the relative merits of open access science publishing has largely passed New Zealand by, mainly because the science publishing power base lies in the UK and the US. Still, with the US and Australia moving this way too, New Zealand will likely have to adopt best practice in its treatment of the open access question – sooner rather than later, it would seem.”