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The move reflects a groundswell of support for ”open access” publishing among academics
The British government has revealed controversial plans to make publicly funded scientific research immediately available for anyone to read for free by 2014, in the most radical shake-up of academic publishing since the invention of the internet.
Research papers that describe work paid for by the British taxpayer will be free online for universities, companies and individuals to use for any purpose, wherever they are in the world.
The universities and science minister, David Willetts said he expected a full transformation to the open approach over the next two years.
The move reflects a groundswell of support for ”open access” publishing among academics who have long protested that journal publishers make large profits by locking research behind online paywalls.
”If the taxpayer has paid for this research to happen, that work shouldn’t be put behind a paywall before a British citizen can read it,” Mr Willetts said. ”This will take time to build up, but within a couple of years we should see this fully feeding through.”
He said there would be ”massive” economic benefits to making research open to everyone.
via TheAge – Ian Sample
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