Copyright & Education » Why SA should care about the Research Works Act

“In just 3 pages the Research Works bill seeks to prohibit open access mandates for federally funded research in the USA thus reverting the open access policy of the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the USA. The bill has the support of Elsevier, Association of American Publishers and the Copyright Alliance... If the bill were to be enacted it would roll back the open access policy by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and prevent all USA federal agencies from adopting a similar mandate... Essentially the bill prevents open access to taxpayer funded research without the consent of the publisher of the work... the NIH (deemed the largest source of funding for medical research in the world) funds over 100 projects in SA either partially or fully and has funded clinical studies each of which has yielded valuable publications – with the University of Cape Town having the most NIH funded projects (NIH Reporter Website accessed on 14 February 2012) . All publications arising out of these projects are freely available to the public and therefore these publications contribute to finding new ways of treating diseases, making scientific progress and improving health management for example. This research conducted by South Africans should be of benefit to South Africans, for the advancement of medical treatments in our country and elsewhere... In 2010, Arcadia commissioned a study on access to research in east and southern African universities. According to the study, access to scholarly resources is no longer the primary problem  - the new problem is searchability/visibility or awareness surrounding the availability of scholarly resources. It was reported in the Arcadia study that  most of the scholars  used Google to search for scholarly resources and therefore were not discovering the subscription content... The reach (as evidenced by the statistics above) and benefits of open access cannot be be denied and it is important that researchers, institutions and organisations  stand up and speak out against bills such as the Research Works Act – but more important make others aware of the implications of these bills for not just the USA but other countries where US interests are present. Closing down access to information that can save lives is nonsensical and it is my hope that the counter bill, Federal Research Public Access Act, gains widespread support and is enacted... For interest, read the Director of the NIH’s response to  Joseph Pitts who alleged that the NIH open access policy “undermines the competitiveness of the science technology and medical publishing industry.”