Nearly all of Sweden’s university and college libraries were represented, in addition to the Swedish Research Council, individual researchers and others. The main focus was on Open Access policies and practices within and between Swedish universities and colleges, and on Swedish and European archiving and repository challenges and techniques.
Håkan Billig, Secretary General of the Medical Scientific Council of the Swedish Research Council, and responsible for drawing up guidelines for and implementing the Research Council’s publication policies, reported that the Research Council is likely to announce their long-awaited Open Access policy in December 07. The Council has signed the Berlin declaration and the Petition to the EU, yet has been uncertain as to how it would proceed in practice. Though Billig could not provide the details of the forthcoming policy, his presentation suggested that in future, funding recipients will be bound by a contractual clause that addresses Open Access publishing in some form. Billig emphasized that the Research Council’s prime goal is to maximize access, not to minimize publishing costs.
Marianne Wikgren, Research Officer at the Humanities and Social Sciences Scientific Council of the Swedish Research Council announced that earmarked funds to support the publication of Open Access journals will be available from 2008. The Scientific Council is currently restructuring its application forms to this end. This should spur the launch of several new Open Access journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences, as well as provide some needed support to existing journals.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/18/2007 12:46:00 PM.
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.
