Press releases
05 July 2005
BioMed Central applauds Research Councils UK draft statement on Open Access
BioMed Central applauds the draft position statement on access to research outputs that was released for public comment last week by Research Councils UK (RCUK).
RCUK's statement notes that the Research Councils have a responsibility to ensure that "Ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded research are made available and accessible for public use, interrogation, and scrutiny, as widely, rapidly and effectively as practicable," and sets out plans for several practical steps to make this happen.
The statement proposes that RCUK will require that all research articles arising from Council-funded work should be deposited in Open Access repositories. It also confirms that the cost of publishing in Open Access journals such as those published by BioMed Central can be included in grant applications to the research councils.
BioMed Central welcomes these proposals, and encourages researchers to make the final version of their research accessible immediately on publication, by choosing an Open Access journal. Publishing in any of BioMed Central's 130 Open Access journals will also make life easier for RCUK-funded researchers as BioMed Central already deposits a copy of the official final version of every research article that it publishes in a suitable Open Access repository (PubMed Central). As a result, authors who publish with BioMed Central will automatically meet the requirements of the RCUK policy, saving themselves the effort of having to deposit a separate copy of their research article.
The RCUK draft statement comes in the wake of similar policy announcements from the Wellcome Trust (the UK's largest biomedical research charity), and from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), which spends more than $20 billion on research each year. Matthew Cockerill, BioMed Central's Director of Operations, noted: "Wellcome, the UK Research Councils and the NIH between them fund a major fraction of all world-wide biomedical research. Each of these funders has now made a clear public statement supporting Open Access to the research literature, and is taking practical steps to make this goal a reality. Researchers and laypeople alike will benefit profoundly from this revolution in scientific communication".
RCUK is now inviting feedback on its proposal, with the consultation period open until 31 August 2005. BioMed Central encourages interested parties to show their support for the RCUK proposal by writing to Dr. Astrid Wissenburg at RCUK. RCUK have already consulted widely, including 121 Vice-chancellors of UK Universities. More information about the consultation, including a full list of those organisations that have participated to date, is available on the RCUK website (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/list.pdf).
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For more information, contact:
Grace Baynes
Tel: +44 (0)20 7631 9988
E-mail: press@biomedcentral.com
About BioMed Central
BioMed Central is an independent online publishing house committed to providing open access to peer-reviewed research. This commitment is based on the view that immediate free access to research and the ability to freely archive and reuse published information is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science.
RCUK's announcement of its policy:
Press Release: http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/press/20050628openaccess.asp
Position statement and consultation details:
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/index.asp
