Petition on open access to research ouputs

Over 10,000 people and hundreds of respresentatives of education and research institutions have so far signed a petition whuich calls on the European Commission to adopt polices to guarantee free public access to research results and maximise the worldwide visibility of European research. It presses the Commission to formally endorse the recommendations outlined in the EC-commissioned Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe. Published in early 2006, the study made a number of important recommendations to help ensure the widest possible readership for scholarly articles. In particular, the first recommendation called for 'Guaranteed public access to publicly-funded research results shortly after publication'.

The EC will host a meeting in February to discuss its position regarding widening access and the petition is intended to convey the overwhelming level of public support for the recommendations of the EC study.

The petition is available at: www.ec-petition.eu/

The EC-commissioned Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets of Europe is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf