RCUK's statement notes that the Research Councils have a responsibility to ensure that "Ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded research are made available and accessible for public use, interrogation, and scrutiny, as widely, rapidly and effectively as practicable," and sets out plans for several practical steps to make this happen. The statement proposes that RCUK will require that all research articles arising from Council-funded work should be deposited in Open Access repositories. It also confirms that the cost of publishing in Open Access journals such as those published by BioMed Central can be included in grant applications to the research councils. BioMed Central welcomes these proposals, and encourages researchers to make the final version of their research accessible immediately on publication, by choosing an Open Access journal. Publishing in any of BioMed Central's 130 Open Access journals will also make life easier for RCUK-funded researchers as BioMed Central already deposits a copy of the official final version of every research article that it publishes in a suitable Open Access repository (PubMed Central). As a result, authors who publish with BioMed Central will automatically meet the requirements of the RCUK policy, saving themselves the effort of having to deposit a separate copy of their research article....Matthew Cockerill, BioMed Central's Director of Operations, noted: "Wellcome, the UK Research Councils and the NIH between them fund a major fraction of all world-wide biomedical research. Each of these funders has now made a clear public statement supporting Open Access to the research literature, and is taking practical steps to make this goal a reality. Researchers and laypeople alike will benefit profoundly from this revolution in scientific communication".
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/07/2005 08:49:00 AM.
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.
