US Congress and European Research Council insist on open access to research results

doi:10.1136/bmj.39468.592280.DB

BMJ 2008;336:176-177 (26 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39468.592280.DB

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US Congress and European Research Council insist on open access to research results

Jeanne Lenzer

¹ New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The US Congress and the European Research Council (ERC) haveannounced mandatory open access policies that direct researchersto deposit their manuscripts with PubMed Central or other specifiedonline medical databases that are freely available to the public.

The US mandate was signed into law by the president, GeorgeBush, on 26 December and follows nearly four years of contentiousdebate. The Association of American Publishers opposed the policy,saying that it "eliminates the concept of permission and effectivelyallows the agency to take important property interests withoutcompensation, including the value added to the article by thepublishers’ investments in the peer review process."

But consumer groups and researchers argue that the public haspaid for publicly sponsored research and that it should be freelyavailable to the public (BMJ 2007;335:906 doi: 10.1136/bmj.39384.638241.DB).

The European Research Council issued an "interim position" on17 December, stating that "all . . . [Full text of this article]

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