Open Access News

If you remember the important EC Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe (dated January 2006 but released in late March), it was followed by a period of public comments on the report's recommendations (March 31 - June 15, 2006).  The EC has now released a summary of the comments received as well as all the individual comments themselves.  Excerpt from the summary:

The issue receiving the most comments is that of access to the results of publicly-funded research. Two of the Study's recommendations relate directly to this topic: recommendation A1 ("Guarantee public access to publicly-funded research results shortly after publication") and recommendation A2 ("Aim at a 'level-playing field' in terms of business models in publishing").

Many of the responses received equate public access as mentioned in recommendation A1 with the principle of "open access", defined by the 2000 Budapest Open Access Initiative as "free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself".

Out of the 170 responses received, 134 support recommendation A1. Within this group, 24 respondents mention the importance of open access to science and scientists in improving the process and the impact of scientific research, while 13 mention the role of open access for the public good in achieving economic and social benefits. Amongst respondents who support open access, the concept also carries a notion of moving forward. As Nobel Prize-winner Richard J. Roberts writes in his contribution, "open access is the only model of the future and the debate should be how we can get there as quickly as possible". In their responses, several research organizations describe ways in which they are already supporting access to the research they fund. The Wellcome Trust writes of the development of the online digital archive UK PubMed Central, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has already established a policy on free access to research results, and the nuclear research organization CERN implemented a policy on deposit in 2003, a decision which has resulted in a large database of reports on research in high energy physics. Franck Laloë of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in his response points to the value of a European approach to such initiatives: "A European effort in the direction of large open archives could have a tremendous impact".

Of the various possible forms of public access, the strongest support is for the deposit of journal articles in repositories....

The responses display a variety of views on placing a time embargo on public access to research results, some making a case for a delay, others pressing for immediate access....

The implementation of open access principles by public bodies is implicitly or explicitly opposed by 4 respondents (Thieme Publishing, the Biochemical Society, Reed Elsevier, and the Association of American Publishers) and 13 respondents react to open access with caution. Objections to recommendation A1 are mainly in the form of notes of caution against too precipitous action based on a Study which critics view as being flawed. This caution is based on the view that open access puts the existing dissemination of scientific research through subscription journals at risk.

Publishers and publishers' organizations generally argue that their policies improve access and that therefore it is not necessary to follow recommendation A1....

One particular area of concern to some respondents who express caution on access issues is the question of damage to the profitability of journals from small publishing houses....

According to some respondents from library and information organizations, the Commission could support recommendation A2 in discussions with Member States, encouraging national research funding agencies to identify funds for the payment of open access publication charges. The clear identification of funds for this purpose could ease publisher concerns about the future viability of their business and help to create the "level-playing field".

The EC invites discussion of the report on SINAPSE (apparently here but unclear).  The report will also be the subject of an upcoming conference as well.