Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Saturday, February 24, 2007

OA supporter becomes Dutch minister of education, culture, and science

Wouter Gerritsma, Important OA proponent becomes minister of education in the Netherlands, Wouter over het Web, February 24, 2007.  Excerpt:

With the installment of the new government in the Netherlands, an important OA proponent, Ronald Plasterk, has become minister of Education. Prof. Dr. R. H. A. Plasterk was director of the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht (An English version of his CV can be found in the Google Cache, our ministers normally don't need a CV in another language than Dutch). Amongst others he is still listed at this moment as member of the editorial board of PLoS Biology. Plasterk is probably the best known advocate of OA publishing in the Netherlands. Vouching his opinion on OA in his columns in the Dutch press, as well as figuring in many interviews on OA in the same press. He was not only advocating OA, he was also actively participating in the OA movement. As an editor of the first PLoS journal. Or through making his papers published elsewhere available on his website (Partly to be found in the Google cache, on being appointed as a minister some odd things happen to your webpages).

Policy makers at Dutch Universities are thrilled with his appointment. Since he was quite a popular columnist a lot of his opinions are well known. So far, his ideas on OA, and his active participation, and his open rebellion against copyrights of the big publishers, have not been highlighted yet. It is about time to do a review about this subject. It will be really interesting to see how he deals with the OA issue on the political agenda.

PS:  Congratulations to Ronald Plasterk and kudos to Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende for this exciting appointment.