We – meaning you and I dear reader -- have paid for some really bad things through our public research dollars. Exhibit A: In the late 1990’s the research arm of the U.S. Dept of Agriculture teamed up with Delta and Pineland Co. to genetically engineer seed to make it sterile in the second generation, thus forcing farmers to buy seed every year. This rogue technology was named “Terminator Technology.” It’s not hard to see that Terminator was as anti-farmer and anti-consumer as any invention created. This hijacking of our research dollars prompted a group of us to draft a paper defining public interest research because we believed that when public money was involved, the public had a right to expect that research it funded would serve the public interest. It should add to the commonwealth and common health, not subtract from it. In that paper we said that public interest research “will be identified by its beneficiaries, the public availability of its results, and public involvement in the research. These key benchmarks identify public interest research:
The primary, direct beneficiaries are society as a whole or specific populations or entities unable to carry out research on their own behalf.
Information and technologies resulting from public interest research are made freely available (not proprietary or patented); and
Such information and technologies are developed with collaboration or advice from an active citizenry.”
Here are the OA-related excerpts from the paper Raffensberger wrote with 10 co-authors, Defining Public Interest Research (a 1999 white paper for the Science and Environmental Health Network; The Center for Rural Affairs; and the Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture, Research and Education) :
How are the data and results of publicly funded research kept in the public domain? Are they made available through the internet, public libraries, journals, press releases for media stories? Who decides how such results are used? ...Some would say that keeping information in the public domain does not rule out profit. The computer industry is experiencing the benefits of freely available programs and operating systems developed by volunteers. In some cases, companies continue to invest in systems they will not be able to own, and both the public and the company profit from the development this stimulates. But others wonder whether research that results in financial gain to universities, hospitals, and corporations qualifies as public interest research. American agriculture and society as a whole have benefited from the freely available information coming from publicly funded experimental stations and universities. This has begun to change, however, as patent laws assign ownership to information developed at public expense. While the privilege of patenting genes and organisms encourages investment in research and marketing to exploit these technologies, it also directs public money to private gain. When public funds have supported any aspect of research, it is difficult to reconcile the issuing of patents and the sealing off of proprietary information with the public interest.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/24/2006 10:45:00 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.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
