Open Access to scientific information - European Commission

" ... Vision:  Our vision is that all scientific information should be available online free of charge (= open access). In particular, peer-reviewed publications and research data resulting from public funding must be circulated rapidly and widely, using digital media. This can accelerate scientific discovery, enable new forms of data-intensive research and allow research findings to be taken up by businesses in order to develop new products and services.  What is the situation we have decided to change:   The internet and the emerging infrastructures for scientific information should give researchers across the world access to the latest research results. There are, however, barriers in place that need to be tackled in order to fulfil the vision of open access (OA) to scientific information.   Publications: Further access to and use of scientific publications is currently limited  because of high and increasing prices of journals, a problem that will grow because of the reduced budgets of libraries due to the crisis. The underlying issues are the funding of research dissemination and the viability of traditional publishing models in the internet age. Publishers and scientists should agree on the way forward reconciling the interests of all different stakeholders.  Data: Research data is currently not made widely available online. When it is made available, it is often not presented in a format that facilitates (re)use. This obstructs knowledge diffusion and results in a huge loss in efficiency of research investments."