The University of Nottingham has announced plans to launch an OA-focused Centre for Research Communications (no URL yet). From today's announcement:
...The SHERPA team at the University of Nottingham are pleased to announce the formation of a new research centre -- the Centre for Research Communications (CRC). This will be based at the University and will help to support and inform these changes and new ideas. The CRC will house the portfolio of open access projects, services and initiatives currently undertaken by the University.
These include the home of the SHERPA partnership; the open access services RoMEO, Juliet and OpenDOAR; the Repositories Support Project (RSP), and the University contribution to the European and international projects DRIVER, Dart-Europe and NECOBELAC. Project and service funders include JISC, the European Commission, the Wellcome Trust and SPARCEurope. The CRC will also act as a focus for new work in the area both within the University and nationally.
Bill Hubbard has been appointed as Head of the CRC: "We aim to develop innovative research and development activities across the whole field of research communication. This is an exciting time for authors and researchers. We are beginning to leave behind straightforward electronic analogues of our centuries-old print world and realise the possibilities of new and far richer forms of research communication."
The SHERPA team and others will be working over the coming weeks to establish the CRC and promote its activities -- more details soon!
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.
