Calestous Juma and Lee Yee-Cheong, Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development, UN Millennium Project, 2005 (large, 194 pp. PDF). Excerpt: '[p. xiii] The aim of this report is to share lessons learned from the past five decades of development practices. It is not a collection of recommendations of what countries should do but a source of ideas on how to approach development challenges....[p. 11] Open access publishing has the potential to make all published knowledge available to anyone with an Internet connection. The United Nations has been at the forefront in the drive to establish open access to information and technology....[p. 109] Compiling knowledge of best practices into freely accessible databases would be another way to use ICT to diffuse technology and encourage its appropriate adoption in developing countries....[p. 115] Open access to sequence data is an important tool for promoting innovation and should therefore be encouraged as part of the large pursuit to balance "open science" and proprietary incentives embodied in intellectual property rights....[p. 168-169] While the prospect of free, comprehensive Internet archives of scientific literature is compelling, the logistics of open access remain a source of uncertainty for some stakeholders in scientific publishing. The United Nations has championed the need to promote open access to information and technology. It can play a critical role in promoting the concept of open access....[p. 169] Unrestricted access to scientific data, such as genetic and molecular information, has revolutionized life science research in recent years; open access to the treasury of scientific and medical literature will have equally profound benefits for research. For research libraries open access will help contain the spiraling costs of subscriptions to scientific journals....[p. 170] In the long run the open access model will thrive when there is a redistribution of funding in the scholarly publication system. Costly individual and institutional subscriptions can be eliminated, freeing up funds from libraries, universities, and ultimately research grants --funds that could then be used to pay for publication charges. Many research-funding agencies --particularly those that invest in health, the environment, and other areas of concern to developing countries-- already acknowledge that the dissemination and sharing of information and data are crucial to the advancement of their goals. These agencies can do more to assert that open access publishing is an important mechanism to facilitate this global sharing of knowledge....[T]he digital divide should not prevent the international community from finding creative ways to promote access to knowledge. In fact, the existence of open access facilities such as the Public Library of Science should serve as a signal of the urgency of providing the infrastructure needed to link the developing world to the global fund of knowledge.' (Thanks to Subbiah Arunachalam.)
(PS: This is very encouraging, especially for the signs that the UN may increase its support for OA. The only thing missing is an approciation for the role of OA archiving alongside OA journals.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/15/2005 06:02:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
