[LINK] UK publicly funded research free to read

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

UK to make publicly funded research free to read 

09 December 2011 by Andrew Purcell 


All scientific research funded by British taxpayers will be made 
available online free of charge, according to a government report 
published earlier this week. 

And it doesn't stop there – the government intends the website, to be 
named Gateway to Research, to eventually incorporate research funded by 
other bodies.

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/innovation/docs/i/11-1387-innovation-
and-research-strategy-for-growth.pdf

Much of the high-energy physics research community currently uses a 
system of open-access online publishing, and Janet Finch, former vice-
chair of Keele University, UK, has been charged with investigating how 
the UK might set up something similar for all its taxpayer-funded 
science. 

The arxiv.org website, an online repository set up in 1991, offers almost 
all high-energy physics research for free. Despite this, established 
physics journals have reported no decrease in subscriptions.

The announcement is part of a growing trend towards open access, 
following the success of the free journals PLoS One and, more recently, 
Nature Scientific Reports.

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cheers,
stephen