June 7, 2004

Lobbying for Open Access legislation

Many different strategies might bring about the transition to Open Access. Some advocates have taken a grass-roots approach, trying to convince researchers that the best way to communicate their results is through Open Access journals or Open Archives. But others feel that political lobbying might be an effective way to convince governments to adopt Open Access initiatives. Francis Muguet talked to Open Access Now about his role in the World Summit on the Information Society and the importance of political approaches to Open Access.

"I am from a family of lawyers," begins Muguet. "When I was young my father was always kidding me about not knowing law. So I went and did a law degree. This was very useful for the kind of lobbying that I have been involved in. I am a research chemist, but I am approaching this lobbying with a legal mind."

We are sitting in Muguet's office in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA) on the edge of Paris, in the Laboratoire de Mathématiques Appliquées. Muguet chooses his words carefully; months of negotiating with international diplomats have made him cautious about how he expresses himself.

Muguet first got involved in Open Access because of his own research in theoretical chemistry. Several years ago he sent an article to an online journal that subsequently changed from Open Access to restrictive access. (Ever the lawyer, Muguet is careful not to name the journal). "I was very upset by this story. Then Dr Lin, who founded the first Open Access journal in chemistry in 1996 (Molecules), contacted me to submit an article to his journal. In fact, in chemistry the situation for Open Access is very difficult," says Muguet. "So far the Open Access community in chemistry has been somewhat isolated from the efforts of others; we were in our own corner and not interacting much with researchers in physics and biology and everyone else. This event pushed me to become an activist. And I became very actively involved in supporting Dr Lin and his journals."

The World Summit on the Information Society is a summit of the United Nations (UN). It is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, an international organization within the United Nations System. Muguet is the chairman of the Civil Society Working Group on Scientific Information that played an important role in getting Open Access on the agenda at the WSIS meeting.

The goal of the first phase of the WSIS was to prepare two documents: a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action. "In a way, the WSIS amounts to a special plenary session of the UN general assembly," explains Muguet. "The only WSIS participants who may vote are governments. The Civil Society that is composed of non-government organizations (NGO) that are non-voting participants and have the diplomatic status of observers." There were a number of preparatory meetings (called PrepComs) between July 2002 and December 2003. "The negotiations were tough and took longer than expected," says Muguet, describing the December Summit meeting as "just a formal and grandiose approbation of the texts."

"The WSIS was the first UN summit where the Civil Society was really involved and could officially participate. This is a historical turn of events," says Muguet. "I was stunned when I first discovered it. The Civil Society was able to write recommendations. In the first place we wrote a set of recommendations separately. Then some of these recommendations were merged into a text that was proposed to governments and a significant number of our recommendations were included in the text at that stage: for example, the use of peer-to-peer technology for the exchange of scientific knowledge between researchers." The process involved months of diplomatic negotiations about the exact wording of the text and its recommendations.

The WSIS itself is held in two meetings. The first was in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2003 and saw the adoption of the Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action documents. The second meeting is scheduled to be held in Tunis, Tunisia, in November 2005 and will focus on progress achieved and implementation strategies.

Muguet was heavily involved in the behind-the-scenes negotiations. "I computed that I spent more that one month with diplomats. There were many series of meetings, spread out over months. There was a real fight about the wording of the Declaration, about the very principle to include the words 'Open Access'. There was strong resistance against it."

Muguet went from delegation to delegation drumming up support for Open Access. "We had to get a consensus, as any single state can block the Declaration by voting against it. It was a difficult fight. But Open Access was not the only issue; there were many issues and many things at stake. The chairman of the PrepCom conferences, Adama Samassékou from Mali, played a key role in raising awareness about the future of culture and sustainable development. And this was tremendously helpful to us" notes Muguet. He realized that the individual states had to compromise on certain issues. "They cannot all stay opposed to it for a long time, because they would look too much like bad guys in front of the whole world. So in the end, I managed to persuade all opposing delegations." The greatest opposition came from some major western delegations.

Almost single-handedly, Muguet moved from one delegation to another, developing diplomatic arguments to encourage them to support the inclusion of Open Access statements. "I had to go and find some friendly delegations who would support my recommendation. Most of the diplomats were not aware of the situation in scientific publishing and when I explained it to them they agreed that this situation should not be maintained. I had to present different types of arguments depending on the political situation of each country," recalls Muguet. "For example, I was able to convince the European delegation not to object to Open Access because it will actually save them money, and that the prevailing business model does not follow the orthodoxy of the capitalist system because it is indirectly subsidized by the states. The Berlin declaration, signed by French and German research agencies, also came just in time to be of great help."

"The main issue of this summit is to bridge the digital divide," explains Muguet. "So I presented Open Access as the very best way to bridge that divide concerning scientific information. We save money in the richer countries and we bring knowledge to the poorer ones; politically it is a 'win win' situation. I feel that the issue of the digital divide within Open Access has not been stressed enough within the community of scientists. You must remember that some states support Open Access because they see it as a way to increase the visibility of journals from their own country. The scientific journals are the flags of a nascent scientific body and the Open Access model brings them to a wider audience. It looks as though Open Access is a way to bridge the digital divide and that the richer countries can actually save money."

"It doesn't matter whether the work is supported by funding agencies, states, philanthropic organizations or private companies. It is the intent that matters," says Muguet. "Once an author has decided to donate the content free of charge, then in fact it doesn't make any sense not to do the next step which is to publish so that the content is freely available. Now the technology makes this possible for a marginal cost compared to the cost of the research itself."

Muguet acknowledges the support of many states including Australia, China, Croatia, Fiji, France, India, Kenya, Mali and Moroco. The support of Croatia and Kenya was absolutely crucial. The declaration was a very tough fight right up until the last minute. It took many late night sessions. In fact, the inclusionin of support for Open Access initiatives into the Declaration was adopted at 11 pm." The final Declaration of Principles, as well as the Plan of Action, includes several statements of commitment to improving the sharing of scientific information. For example, one of its stated principles is "We strive to promote universal access with equal opportunities for all to scientific knowledge and the creation and dissemination of scientific and technical information, including open access initiatives for scientific publishing."

"There were few political initiatives within Open Access, so I became 'a diplomat for Open Access'." But Muguet concedes that the legal value of the recommendation is rather weak, because states are not obliged to follow these recommendations. "But a state or organization that follows these recommendations cannot be criticized for it," he says. "So for political decision-makers, who are always concerned by possible criticisms from the lobbies backing the current 'status quo', the fact that they can now use the shield of the WSIS texts to claim that they are just following the recommendations of the UN is a very effective weapon. Scientific institutions and funding agencies can now also take the risk of enforcing an Open Access policy because they can say that it has been recommended by the UN. This is the strength of it. It provides a shield for the many people who believe in Open Access but do not feel sufficiently strong at the political level."

"Now it is up to different states to define mechanisms of implementation," says Muguet. He notes that this is the first declaration that has been signed by 176 governments. He is working closely with some key funding agencies in Europe to define national implementation plans. "I hate endless discussions on internet mailing lists," says Muguet. "I want something to be done. I cannot tell you yet what it will be, but we are working on something effective and something that can be enforced, based on the WSIS recommendations."

Muguet won't be drawn into commenting heavily on the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into scientific publishing. He submitted a lengthy written evidence document, but he is openly critical of how the inquiry has been handled. He has not been invited to present oral evidence. "I am really quite disappointed." He has posted a commentary on the WSIS Civil Society Scientific Information website that criticises the scheduling and the small number of scientists that were invited to give oral testimony. "One can clearly see that the oral testimony schedule is completely unbalanced in favour of publishers. How can the UK International Development Policy in relationship to Science be seriously considered without discussing the very recent WSIS conclusions and also major Open Access declarations, such as the recent Berlin Declaration?" asks Muguet.

Muguet is clearly cautious: "I would logically expect that their conclusions will be as unbalanced as the schedule was. But a pleasant surprise cannot be excluded, judging from the mood of the public hearings, as reported by friends." One worry is that the UK Inquiry might set a bad precedent for further attempts at national legislation. "If the WSIS recommendations are not discussed in details in this inquiry, they are of little consequence for our purpose. Maybe it was too soon after the WSIS, too soon for awareness to be raised". Muguet adds that "What matters is that we have now the legal international basis to ask for (such inquiries). Now the politicians have a solid reference frame and they must begin implementing the WSIS recommendations."

But Muguet remains convinced that legislation is an effective way to bring about change. "There is too much inertia in the scientific community. It needs to be enforced from above." He sees this as complementary to more grass-roots approaches. "We take the enemy from both sides." Bitten by the diplomatic bug, he intends to do more behind-the-scenes lobbying. "We have not yet exploited the success of the Summit in terms of the politics. So far I haven't paid so much attention to the public relations side of things. I invested more in the diplomatic sphere. I cannot do everything at the same time, and afterwards we will be able to exploit it fully. The important thing is that we now have an international document signed by 176 states. This has brought Open Access into the mainstream." In the months to come we can expect to hear more from this legal mind about implementing the recommendations that he fought for vigorously at the WSIS.

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