Open Access News

Even though basic research doesn’t often result in immediately usable products, it plays an essential role in technological innovations, as it has formed the basis for many groundbreaking advances in product development over the decades....On the other hand, it is also common that product design processes provoke new directions and developments in basic research....This reciprocal connection between new ideas in basic research and product development can be called an innovation cycle....New ideas in one area generate more or different ideas not just on that topic or in that area but also more widely....The faster new ideas find their routes into everyday life, the broader and deeper their impact on, for instance, social development can be. In our knowledge society, the advancement of learning and research no longer takes place strictly at universities and research institutions. Today, numerous types of knowledge agents --business enterprises, foundations, individual inventors, and other social actors-- play essential roles in knowledge creation. An impact, however, is that the scope of expanding research is perhaps changing the nature of basic research....And, because of the “give-and-take” of the innovation cycle, strong communication is needed between the various stakeholders within the knowledge production sectors of modern society. Open access publishing provides one important tool for the communication of research results and innovative applications within our modern society. This free access to research findings can mean that anyone --everyone-- who seeks the information on contemporary thinking and testing can tap into the knowledge generated, no matter by whom or where. Independent of the size or resources of the individual, the organization, or the enterprise, a designer, a researcher, a manager, etc. may tap into some knowledge and implement it in a variety of ways. Open access publishing possesses a crucial element of the broad dissemination of knowledge, and thereby speeds up the innovation cycle. Open access publishing of research builds essential connections among --and benefits to-- universities, business enterprises, and society at large.