Government backing research access

David Willetts said there would be 'massive' economic benefits to making publicly funded scientific research open to everyone
16 July 2012

Everybody will have free access to publicly funded scientific research as soon as it is published, under plans being unveiled by the Government.

By 2014, all academic papers describing studies that have been funded by the taxpayer will be immediately available to read online.

The move has been described as the most radical shake-up of academic publishing since the invention of the internet. It comes amid protests that journal publishers are making large profits by locking research behind online paywalls.

Universities and science minister David Willetts said there would be "massive" economic benefits to making research open to everyone.

"If the taxpayer has paid for this research to happen, that work shouldn't be put behind a paywall before a British citizen can read it," he said in an interview with the Guardian. "This will take time to build up, but within a couple of years we should see this fully feeding through."

British universities, businesses and residents will have free access to the research wherever they are in the world and be able to use it for any purpose they wish.

Universities currently pay around £200m a year in subscription fees to journal publishers, according to the newspaper. Under the new scheme, authors will pay "article processing charges" (APCs) of around £2,000 to have their papers peer reviewed, edited and made freely available online.

Many academics and scientists have welcomed the announcement, but concerns have been raised that the transition, which could reportedly reach £50m a year, will be funded through the existing science budget.

Mr Willetts said: "There is a transitional cost to go through, but it's overall of benefit to our research community and there's general acceptance it's the right thing to do. We accept that some of this cost will fall on the ring-fenced science budget, which is £4.6bn."

He added: "The real economic impact is we are throwing open, to academics, researchers, businesses and lay people, all the high quality research that is publicly funded. I think there's a massive net economic benefit here way beyond any £50m from the science budget."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in