Open Access in EU finally on the Horizon? ‹ The Political Bouillon

"Dis­cus­sions on the cost of access to art­icles in schol­arly journ­als have been  rock­ing the inter­na­tional media in the past months – every­where from the Eco­nom­ist to the New York Times. The pro­ver­bial genie has left the bottle, every­day more research­ers, stu­dents, and poli­cy­makers are real­iz­ing how unsus­tain­able today’s way of pub­lish­ing research has become. Com­pli­ment­ing bold ini­ti­at­ives on this issue in the UK and the USA, the EU plans to make all €80bn it will fund through 2020 openly avail­able. Neelie Kroes, European Com­mis­sioner for Digital Agenda, has recently said: 'Tax­pay­ers should not have to pay twice for sci­entific research and they need seam­less access to raw data. We want to bring dis­sem­in­a­tion and exploit­a­tion of sci­entific research res­ults to the next level. Data is the new oil.' In this art­icle, I will try to briefly out­line the prob­lem of access to journal art­icles and cur­rent devel­op­ments at the EU level for alle­vi­at­ing it. Today’s stu­dents are the largest part of the aca­demic com­munity. As the schol­ars and poli­cy­makers of the future, we should be aware of the steep bar­ri­ers many face in access­ing journ­als, and how stu­dents can work with sup­port­ive insti­tu­tions like the European Com­mis­sion to be part of the solution ... The European Union has recog­nized the import­ance of OA in its pre­vi­ous research fund­ing pro­ject, the Sev­enth Fund­ing Frame­work (FP7). Approx­im­ately 20% of research in this frame­work is required to be made freely avail­able within 6 to 12 months of pub­lic­a­tion. But the new next research fund­ing pro­gram, Hori­zon 2020, has the poten­tial to advance Open Access in a big way by requir­ing 100% of research be made freely avail­able within the same timeframe.  Hori­zon 2020 will fund €80 bil­lion in research grants and run from 2014 to 2020. What is revolu­tion­ary about this fund­ing frame­work is that the EU would request that all the Hori­zon 2020 research be Open Access. This not only means that more than €80 bil­lion of fun­ded research wouldn’t end up behind a pay­wall when pub­lished, but the EU would also be set­ting an import­ant pre­ced­ent for fund­ing agen­cies in Europe and around the world... How­ever, the final draft of Hori­zon 2020 is far from set in stone. It must still pass through the European Par­lia­ment and all the pro­cesses involved in its formal cre­ation. The dis­cus­sions within the Com­mis­sion con­cern­ing the Hori­zon 2020 budget and how far it would go in its Open Access ini­ti­at­ive are ongo­ing and will involve stake­hold­ers (pub­lish­ers, open access advoc­ates, rep­res­ent­at­ives of schol­arly asso­ci­ations), both those for and against a strong open-access policy. It’s cru­cial that stu­dents get involved in the pro­cess and let the Com­mis­sion and the Par­lia­ment know access to research is cru­cial for students.  So, how can stu­dents get involved in this issue? Check out the web­site of the Right to Research Coali­tion, an inter­na­tional alli­ance of stu­dent organ­iz­a­tions rep­res­ent­ing nearly 7 mil­lion stu­dents around the world, that pro­motes Open Access to research res­ults. Their web­site will have updates and action alerts when there are oppor­tun­it­ies for stu­dents to get involved to ensure a strong open-access policy for Hori­zon 2020..."