Worldwide, research activity is confronted by diminishing budgets and increasing control of output by a variety of actors including governments, while researchers are being submitted to unprecedented and deleterious changes in their status, salaries and the independence of their investigations. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has helped to foster discussion worldwide on the need for unhindered and equal access to the means of communication and information content. The importance of information arising from high quality research in the humanities and the sciences has not, however, been sufficiently emphasized during the Summit. It has not emphasized the central role played by researchers in producing information, in promoting a better understanding of media and ICT systems and their content and functions, and in developing culturally relevant content and fostering communication in support of the attainment of inclusive and people-centred Knowledge Societies. Therefore, the International Association for Media and Communications Research (IAMCR) calls upon researchers worldwide to subscribe to the following Researchers’ Charter principles and recommendations for action:
Charter Principles: [1] Researchers worldwide constitute a community of scholars that is central to the development of societies in which knowledge, information and culture are produced and appropriated in the service of humankind and in which researchers are entitled to seek, retrieve, receive and distribute information freely, regardless of geographical borders and the medium used, supported by information exchange enabled by ICTs;...[4] The results of publicly funded research should remain in the public domain so as to support the development, education and welfare of the general population; public archives, libraries, repositories of content and other Internet and information services worldwide should be accessible to researchers without barriers to access;...[6] Culturally appropriate learning and research practices should be developed to foster community-based self-supporting systems of research; to promote open, collaborative and self-organizing publishing models and software development methods that are accessible to researchers and available in not-for-profit databases, libraries and archives; thereby supporting researchers as content producers and as active participants in the open access paradigm of knowledge creation and exchange, as outlined in various initiatives.
IAMCR invites individual researchers, NGO's, organizations and caucuses to sign the charter.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/30/2005 09:00:00 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.
