Open access to research worth �1.5bn a year

["Hamaker, Chuck" <cahamake@email.uncc.edu>]

Subject: Open access to research worth �1.5bn a year

Open access to research worth �1.5bn a year
Published Friday 16th September 2005 10:39 GMT
The Register

Academic cries freedom
By Lucy Sherriff
Published Friday 16th September 2005 10:39 GMT

The UK is losing out on its investment in scientific research to the tune
of �1.5bn every year, according to advocates of open access publishing.

Professor Stevan Harnad from the University of Southampton argues that
because of the tradition of locking the results of publicly funded
research away in research journals the scientific community is not as free
to build on and develop ideas as it should be.

He calculates that if all published work was self-archived (i.e. made
available online, after publication in a journal), the research impact
would be the equivalent of a further �1.5bn investment in UK science,
every year.

He argues that only researchers working at institutions that can afford
journal subscription fees have access to published research, and offers
his backing to the Research Councils UK (RCUK) proposal that all publicly
funded research should be made available on the research institution's
website.

SEE this URL for rest of article and a link to Dr. Harnad's research on this:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/16/free_access_research/

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