Research sector – a call for a full transition to free open access publishing has been launched!
The Council has adopted conclusions on the ‘high quality, transparent, open, trustworthy and equitable scholarly publishing’, in which it calls for immediate and unrestricted open access in publishing research involving public funds.
As stated by Mats Persson, Swedish Minister for Education, Ministry of Education and Research: “If we really believe in open science, we need to make sure that researchers can make their findings available and re-usable and that high-quality scientific articles are openly accessible to anyone that needs to read them. This should be particularly the case for research that benefits from public funding: what has been paid by all should be accessible to all.”
According to what defined, the Council encourages the Commission and the member states to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers. “We need to make sure that researchers can make their findings available and re-usable and that high-quality scientific articles are openly accessible to anyone that needs to read them.” added the Swedish Minister Mats Persson.
This new approach created opposing reactions both from the science community and journal publishers. According to one of the leading publishers dominating the current market, Taylor & Francis, the ministers’ goals and open access ambition are a big step forward, but it affirms that the company’s profit-making drive increases efficiency, sustainability and longevity. Publishers fear that this non-profit approach will hurt the long-term sustainability of publishing.
Nevertheless, the most important thing now is not to lose the momentum created by the ministers that encourage national open access policies and guidelines to make scientific publications immediately openly accessible.
This is the new transition for the research sector which is becoming a global trend – don’t miss the momentum!
