Open access publisher BioMed Central today welcomed a report from the European Commission that calls attention to problems with the current system for scientific publication. The EC study, prepared by economists at Toulouse University and the Free University of Brussels, identifies various reasons why the current scientific publishing system does not work as effectively as it should. The report also makes several concrete policy recommendations for improving the system. "This is a very important report," said Matthew Cockerill, Publisher at BioMed Central. "It confirms what BioMed Central has been saying for some time - that scientists and funders are getting a poor deal from the traditional publishing system, which delivers limited access at high cost. The report also supports the view that open access publication, funded by article processing charges, would provide greater transparency and so deliver a more efficient service to the scientific community."...The report notes that, if funders wish to avoid simply preserving the publishing status quo, they need to actively provide support for new publishing models such as open access. According to the report's authors:
"It is worth noting that, if the research funding authorities want to 'give a chance' to the author-pay model, they have to allow for a 'level-playing field' in comparison with the reader/library-pay model, that is, provide funding for publication costs and not only for library budgets...."
The report goes on to make several explicit policy recommendations. It strongly backs funder policies to require grant recipients to deposit in the funders open access archive:
"Research funding agencies have a central role in determining researchers' publishing practices. Following the lead of the NIH and other institutions, they should promote and support the archiving of publications in open repositories [...] This archiving could become a condition for funding."
In terms of open access publishing, the report recommends:
"[A]llocating money to libraries to subscribe to reader or library-pay journals but also to authors to pay for publication costs in author-pay journals, and to researchers in the reader-pay model. Establishing relative priorities in this respect should become a key policy debate."
BioMed Central welcomes the report, and calls on policy makers in Europe to pay close attention to its findings.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/12/2006 07:37:00 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.
