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BioMed Central launches new online reprint ordering service

BioMed Central is pleased to announce the launch of a new online reprint ordering service, provided by EzReprint, a part of Yurchak Printing, Inc, based in the USA.

Reprints are produced from the final typeset article PDF.  To place an order, from the full text version of the article or its abstract, select the “Order reprints” option in the Tools list in the right-hand navigation, and you will be taken directly to an order form where between 25 and 500 reprints can be purchased.

EzReprint’s system is easy to use, offers high quality copies of both color and black only reprints, plus a number of payment options to suit your needs.

The EzReprint service is available for both open access and subscription based articles.  Of course, any open access article can be reproduced on a normal desktop printer, but this service is a simple alternative for those who require multiple copies of high quality reprints. Orders for higher quantities (500+ copies) will be processed by BioMed Central’s reprints department and enquiries can be forwarded via the “Commercial Orders and Higher Quantities” link on the EzReprint order page, or by email to reprints@biomedcentral.com.   We ask organizations who want to distribute reprints for commercial purposes to contact us.  Our commercial rates are competitive with other publishers, and the income we receive from reprint orders helps to support our Waiver Fund.

For articles at provisional PDF stage, users can register their interest in placing an order, and receive an alert with the final typeset PDF is available.

For further information about reproduction of content from BioMed Central’s journals, please visit our Reprints & permissions page.

JISC Collections hold the key for RSC digital expansion

The Royal Society of Chemistry has signed a three-year agreement with JISC Collections for the latest deal expanding access to the RSC’s international journals portfolio.

The NESLi2 journals offer with JISC Collections for 2013, a membership organisation established by the UK Higher and Further Education funding councils to support the procurement of digital content for education and research in the UK, includes an option to buy the increasingly popular RSC Gold package.

RSC Gold, a premium collection of international journals, databases and magazines offering online access to all published material, has now been purchased by almost 50 UK institutes.

The second option available under the new deal for those institutes with less comprehensive chemical sciences requirements is to ‘pick and choose’ individual journals.

Dan Dyer, RSC Head of Sales, EMEAI, said: “The successful conclusion of our agreement with JISC Collections allows the RSC to open more content to our UK customers. In combination with our recently announced Gold for Gold OA pilot scheme in the UK this agreement puts the Royal Society of Chemistry at the forefront of scientific research provision.”

Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive of JISC, said: “We are delighted to have been able to conclude an agreement that encourages and enables our members to access more chemical sciences content from the Royal Society of Chemistry. We are especially pleased that the RSC took into account the difficult financial climate we face and from the outset adopted a pragmatic and constructive approach to the negotiation”.

NPG expands Linked Data Platform to over a quarter billion triples

As part of its wider commitment to open science, Nature Publishing Group’s (NPG) Linked Data Platform now hosts more than 270 million Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements. It has been expanded more than ten times, in a growing number of datasets. These datasets have been created under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) waiver, which permits maximal use/reuse of this data. The data is now being updated in real-time and new triples are being dynamically added to the datasets as articles are published on nature.com.

Available at http://data.nature.com, the platform now contains bibliographic metadata for all NPG titles, including Scientific American back to 1845, and NPG’s academic journals published on behalf of our society partners. NPG’s Linked Data Platform now includes citation metadata for all published article references. The NPG subject ontology is also significantly expanded.

The new release expands the platform to include additional RDF statements of bibliographic, citation, data citation and ontology metadata, which are organised into 12 datasets – an increase from the 8 datasets previously available. Full snapshots of this data release are now available for download, either by individual dataset or as a complete package, for registered users athttp://developers.nature.com.

“We are delighted to be expanding upon and enhancing our linked data services,” said Jason Wilde, Business Development Director, NPG. “Our Linked Data Platform was warmly welcomed when we launched in April, and by introducing further metadata we hope to continue enriching the semantic web. We invite feedback from the community to help us improve our metadata descriptions and to keep our growing platform focused on best practices for linking data.”

The platform was built in collaboration with information and publishing solutions specialist TSO (The Stationery Office). “NPG’s selection of TSO to deliver its linked data demonstrates we are at the forefront of Linked Data solutions,” said Peter Camilleri, TSO’s Business Development Director. “We are pleased to work with one of the world’s most innovative science publishers in this area, and are glad our expertise in the field of RDF extraction and triple stores is proving beneficial to the science community. The robust OpenUp® linked data platform has proven perfect for NPG’s needs.”

NPG’s platform allows for easy querying, exploration and extraction of data and relationships about articles, contributors, citations, publications, and subjects. Users can run web-standard SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) queries to obtain and manipulate data stored as RDF. The platform uses standard vocabularies such as Dublin Core, FOAF, PRISM, BIBO and OWL, and the data is integrated with existing public datasets including CrossRef and PubMed. The platform originally launched in April 2012.

More information about NPG’s Linked Data Platform is available athttp://developers.nature.com/docs. The datasets are all registered on the Data Hub athttp://thedatahub.org/group/npg. Sample queries can be found at http://data.nature.com/query.

RSC launches £1 million Gold for Gold as Open Access transition begins

The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced a groundbreaking £1 million initiative to support British researchers as they begin the transition to Gold Open Access (OA).

‘Gold for Gold’ is an innovative experiment to support the funder led evolution to Gold OA, by recognising institutes that subscribe to RSC Gold, a premium collection of 37 international journals, databases and magazines offering online access to all published material.

UK institutes who are RSC Gold customers will shortly receive credit equal to the subscription paid, to enabling their researchers, who are being asked to publish Open Access but often do not yet have funding to pay for it directly, to make their paper available via Open Science, the RSC’s Gold OA option.

Dr James Milne, RSC Managing Director, Publishing, said: “The RSC is delighted to announce this innovative experiment to help researchers make their articles Open Access during a period when funding to support this model is still relatively unclear.”

The number of UK institutes subscribing to RSC Gold is now approaching 50, having doubled in the last two months. Dr Milne commented: “We anticipate this initiative will equate to the RSC donating more than £1 million pounds worth of Gold Open Access article processing fees to the UK research community by the end of the year”.

Earlier this week the Government confirmed its support for migrating towards Gold Open Access by making publicly funded scientific research available for anyone to read for free, accepting recommendations in a report on OA by Dame Janet Finch.

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) also published their revised policy on Open Access, requiring researchers to publish in OA compliant journals. ‘Gold for Gold’ seeks to support researchers until the block grants from RCUK are distributed next April, which, once established are intended to fund Gold OA.

Since 2007 all RSC journals have carried the option to make articles Open Access through Open Science – the Gold OA model.

Lesley Gray, Journals Co-ordinator Scheme Manager from the University of Cambridge, said: “This initiative by the RSC is welcomed, and will serve to promote Open Access publishing to researchers.”

Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive of JISC congratulated the RSC on launching ‘Gold for Gold’ which “demonstrates the Society’s engagement with the chemical science community and recent Open Access developments”.

EBSCO in deal with Elsevier to enhance e-book medical collection available via eBooks

An agreement between EBSCO Publishing and Elsevier has significantly enhanced the e-book medical collection available through eBooks on EBSCOhost®. The agreement adds 965 health science titles to EBSCO’s medical e-book collection with over 580 of the titles representing coverage from 2010 to the present.

eBooks on EBSCOhost offers a variety of e-book and audiobook collections for medical research, containing high-quality titles ensuring that researchers find the right material for any of their healthcare needs. The titles from Elsevier, a leading publisher of health and science information, further expands the variety of medical specialties covered in the medical collection including topical areas such as: Pediatrics, Pharmacy, Nursing, Anesthesia, Anatomy/Physiology, Cardiology, Orthopedics, Oncology, Veterinary Medicine, Allied Health, Dentistry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Surgery, Radiology and others.

The Elsevier titles are available in Subject Sets which provide convenient, prepackaged sets of titles chosen to meet libraries’ needs for new content on popular, in-demand topics. The titles are also available via selection through EBSCOhost® Collection Manager (ECM). ECM can be used to search or browse for e-books and audiobooks by title, author, publisher and more or make selections from the Subject Sets or Featured Collections created by EBSCO’s collection development experts. ECM can also help libraries create and manage lists of titles they want to expose to patron drive acquisition (PDA), manage deposits and determine which ownership models to apply to the various e-books and audiobooks in their collection.

STM responds to EC communications on scientific information and ERA

STM read with interest the two Communications (on the European Research Area and on access to scientific information) and the Commission Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information, published on 17 July 2012.

STM is pleased to see that the European Commission:

• recognizes the importance of the European academic and professional publishing market(European publishers account for almost 50% of articles published worldwide) and their rapidadaption to the digital age
• realizes that the economic and societal potential of better access to scientific information canonly be realized if budgets are sufficient
• respects intellectual property rights in the major challenge to broadly implement Open Accessin ERA
• and concludes that access to publicly-funded information has to be wide, fair, sustainable and easy

STM welcomes the efforts of the Commission on research data and applauds the recognition that theprocess of selecting, reviewing and publishing articles has a cost.

STM is pleased to see that the Commission maintains eligibility for Gold open access publishing costs in Horizon2020 and even considers providing reimbursement after end of the grant agreement,previously a major practical stumbling block.

STM is disappointed that the Commission decided not to follow the pragmatic lead of the UK Finch Access Group in preferring Gold to Green Open Access and in opting for minimum Green embargo periods of not less than 12 months when APCs cannot be paid.

CEO of STM, Michael Mabe commented: “Despite data from the PEER project indicating how impractical, time- and labour-consuming a functioning Green OA universe would be, and numerous submissions about the problems inherent in shorter embargos for many disciplines, the Commission has failed to recognise one size does not fit all, retaining short embargo times of six months for all scientific and technical areas.”

While STM welcomes explanatory footnote 36 of the Communication on Scientific Information on exceptional embargo times of twelve months being established under the model grant agreement for Horizon 2020, especially in regard to social science and humanities, many scientific disciplines will also have problems.

STM is looking forward to work with the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament and the Members States to overcome these areas of concern and to help to achieve a smooth and successful transition to a sustainable OA environment.

Thomson Reuters launches latest version of transfer pricing solution

ONESOURCE solution to help global companies comply with tightening transfer pricing regulations

Thomson Reuters today announced the latest version of ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing, the first comprehensive software and content suite to address the entire transfer pricing workflow within a corporation.

ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing helps global organizations automate and control data collection, policy creation and documentation, and ongoing financial monitoring to ensure compliance. This is particularly important in light of  recent moves by governments globally to tighten transfer pricing regulations and strengthen enforcement to generate billions of dollars in incremental revenues each year.

New and updated components that are instrumental to this end-to-end solution are:

  • Transfer Pricing Analyzer (TPA) that provides users with a single, up-to-date view of transfer pricing obligations across key jurisdictions around the world, and the ability to apply such rules in the context of a single company resident in one of the jurisdictions covered.
  • Updated data collection features in the Documenter and Benchmark web-based solutions that enable corporations to analyze the arm’s-length nature of tangible, intangible, and service transactions.

“While companies may have sound transfer pricing documentation in place, research shows that few have all the necessary components to ensure compliance with confidence,” said Joe Harpaz, managing director of the corporate division within the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. “And with global enforcement on the rise, there is a critical need for an end-to-end transfer pricing solution. We are excited to provide a solution consisting of both software and content that can help multi-national companies achieve compliance with confidence from start to finish.”

In recent Thomson Reuters’ polls of 70 tax executives and controllers, nearly half do not have a standard process in place for transfer pricing planning, pricing and documentation. The ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing solution helps global companies:

  • Identify and collect transfer pricing information and data by:
    • Automating the process for collecting financial data from various global systems and other sources.
    • Creating custom information requests to gather necessary company specific and functional information.
    • Compiling global transaction information and relevant supporting files in a centralized location.
  • Design and implement inter-company procedures and policy by:
    • Documenting and managing transfer pricing policies.
    • Capturing policies for global affiliates.
  • Monitor, analyze and fine-tune inter-company policies and pricing by:
    • Reducing or eliminating out-of-period adjustments.
    • Reviewing inter-company policy compliance with ease.
    • Making timely adjustments to ensure appropriate pricing throughout the year.
  • Prepare required documentation by:
    • Accessing guidance and information regarding local regulations and a step-by-step process to complete configurable transfer pricing documentation.
    • Leveraging prior year work that can easily be updated for future years.
    • Searching and analyzing the more than 1.2 million private and public company records worldwide, as well as intangible agreements, with sophisticated filtering and reviewing functionality to efficiently identify comparables for use in transfer pricing analyses.

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins journals win 17 Apex awards for excellence in publishing

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, is pleased to announce that 11 LWW published journals have won 17 highly regarded awards in the 24th annual APEX Awards for Publication Excellence Competition. Notable achievements were awarded to LWW-published journals, Emergency Medicine News taking home for the third consecutive year the Grand Award for Excellence, which recognizes outstanding work in the category of Magapapers & Newspapers; and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, which won in the multimedia category for its journal iPad app edition and website.

APEX Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. Grand Awards honor the outstanding works in each main category, while Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries in each of the individual subcategories. Of the more than 3,400 entries in the competition, just 100 Grand Award Winners were selected.

“Each year, the APEX awards underscore the significant contributions LWW-published journals continue to make across our core medical, nursing and healthcare specialties,” said Karen Abramson, President and CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health Medical Research. “Congratulations to all the honored editorial and publishing teams for their commitment to publishing excellence. I’d like to also acknowledge the outstanding achievement of the Emergency Medicine News team for winning the Apex Grand Prize for the third consecutive year, and the exciting digital win forPlastic and Reconstructive Surgery’s iPad app edition.”

The 17 awards for LWW-published journals include:

—     AJN: American Journal of Nursing

  • Award of Excellence – Cover Design and Illustration; November 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – Blog Writing; “Off the Chart

—     Emergency Medicine News

  • Grand Award – Magapapers & Newspapers, For Profit; September 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – Editorial and Advocacy Writing, “Raiders of the Lost Admit”; August 2011 issue

—     Hearing Journal, The

  • Award of Excellence – Cover Design and Illustration; November 2011 issue

—     Nephrology Times

  • Award of Excellence – Magapapers & Newspaper Writing; January 2011 issue

—     Neurology Today, the official publication of the American Academy of Neurology

  • Award of Excellence – News Writing, “For Medicaid Patients Only, Particularly Children, the Neurologist Might Not Be In”; July 21, 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – One-of-a Kind-Custom-Published Publications, January 19, 2012 issue

—     Nursing made Incredibly Easy!

  • Award of Excellence – Print, Over 32 Pages; January 19, 2012 issue

—     Nursing Management

  • Award of Excellence – Special Purpose Writing, “2012 Guide to Patient Safety”; December 2011 issue

—     The Nurse Practitioner

  • Award of Excellence – Magazine and Journal Writing; September 2011 issue

—      Oncology Times

  • Award of Excellence – Websites, “Oncology-Times.com”
  • Award of Excellence – Blogs, “Practice Matters”
  • Award of Excellence – Regular Departments and Columns, “Musings of a Cancer Doctor”

—      OR Nurse 2011

  • Award of Excellence – Health & Medical Writing, “Remembering 9-11”; September 2011 issue

—      Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, the official publication of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons

  • Award of Excellence – Websites, “PRSJournal.com”
  • Award of Excellence – Multimedia Applications, iPad app

The Apex Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition is open to communicators in corporate, nonprofit and independent settings. Sponsored by the Editors of Writer’s Web Watch, an e-newsletter on print, Web, electronic and social media, and the Writing That Works Archives, a resource for business communicators, the APEX Awards program has been recognizing publishing excellence since 1988.

Huge transition costs will mean a bumpy ride to reach Open Access, says RSC Chief Executive

The Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry has welcomed the government’s Open Access proposals announced yesterday, but said the estimated £50 million annual transition costs would mean a bumpy ride ahead for UK researchers and institutions.

Dr Robert Parker said the RSC had always supported a move towards GoldOpen Access, but warned that money diverted from the already frozen science budget could hit research projects.

He added: “No new money is being found to help with the significant transition costs to the new Open Access publishing model, so the RSC is ready to work with the government to work out how this hole can be plugged. We hope the £50 million to fund the transition will not come from research budgets.

“If it does, the cost of Gold Open Access could lead to less UK research and fewer papers being published by UK researchers. The evolution to Open Access without additional funding could prove problematic, especially for the most productive research institutions. This could mean a bumpy ride as we begin the journey towards full Open Access, particularly while we wait for other nations to decide whether to follow suit.”

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) announced its new Open Access policy yesterday. It stated that all peer reviewed papers that result from research wholly or partially funded by the councils must be published in journals that are compliant with RCUK policy on Open Access. They will provide block grants to Institutions, to fund the Author Processing Charges (APCs) required under the new system. There is no clarity yet on the level of funding RCUK will provide, nor how it will be distributed.

Dr Parker stressed that all RSC journals will be compliant with RCUK requirements for Gold Open Access, ensuring the best research from the UK can continue to be published in the RSC’s leading international journals.

But he added: “We do have concern with the shorter six-month embargo period the RCUK has adopted, for journals that do not offer a Gold Open Access option. This does not align with the Government’s recommendation of an up to 12 month embargo period for science, technology and engineering publications.”

IEEE Announces Next Steps in its Open Access Strategy

Dr. Michael Pecht, Director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, Named Editor-in-Chief of IEEE’s First Interdisciplinary, Rapid-Publication Journal

17 July 2012 – IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, is continuing to develop its strategy on open access publishing. The IEEE Board of Directors recently approved the creation of a rapid-publication, open access megajournal spanning all IEEE fields of interest. Several other topical open access journals are also planned as part of this phase of the rollout.

“The new journals are the next steps in the implementation of our open access strategy announced in 2011,” said Anthony Durniak, IEEE Staff Executive for Publications. “A hybrid open access option also has been available to authors publishing in any of IEEE’s journals since 2011,” said Durniak.

Dr. Michael Pecht, founder and director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Maryland, has been named the journal’s first editor-in-chief. A Fellow of IEEE, ASME, and SAE, Pecht was formerly editor of IEEE Transactions on Reliability for eight years as well as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology. He also has served on the editorial advisory board of IEEE Spectrum magazine. Pecht, who has written over 20 books and 400 technical articles, will spend the next several months assembling an editorial advisory board and developing guidelines and procedures for prospective authors to follow.

The new megajournal, the hybrid option, and other forthcoming specialized open access titles are part of IEEE’s efforts to provide authors with alternatives to traditional publishing.

Elsevier Announces 2011 Journal Impact Factor Highlights

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the highlights of its journal Impact Factor performance in 2011. According to the 2011 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters, Elsevier saw 58% of its journal Impact Factors increase from 2010 to 2011, compared to 54% for non-Elsevier journals.

Elsevier journals top the rankings in 57 subject categories. Nearly 40% of Elsevier’s 1,600 journals in the JCR are in the top 10 of their subject category, with 188 journals ranked in the top 3. Five Elsevier journals have seen a decade of continuous Impact Factor increases: Journal of Ethnopharmacology; Journal of Materials Processing Technology; Carbon; Electrochemistry Communications; Renewable Energy.

Martin Tanke, Managing Director Journals at Elsevier, said “We value these results as they are an acknowledgement of the excellent performance by the authors, reviewers and editors we work with. In addition, we believe these outcomes are the result of our continuous focus on quality. It remains important however to note that the Impact Factor is just one perspective on a journal’s quality and influence. We will continue to invest time and resources into quality enhancing initiatives such as increased support and enhancement of the peer review process to speed up review times, and further innovations on the publishing process to deliver faster publication for our authors.”

All journals in The Lancet family reached their highest Impact Factor yet. The Lancet rose from 33.633 to 38.278, remaining the second-highest ranked journal in the Medicine, General & Internal category. The Lancet Infectious Diseases and The Lancet Neurology retained their number one rankings in their respective categories, while The Lancet Oncology saw its Impact Factor soar from 14.470 to 17.764.

Cell, the flagship journal of Cell Press, an Elsevier imprint, saw its Impact Factor remain stable at 32.403 and continues to be the top primary research journal in the Cell Biology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology subject categories. Among Cell Press’s more recent suite of journal launches, Cell Stem Cell (Impact Factor 25.421) had the highest percentage growth in citations in its field. More than 70% of the Trends review journals had an increased Impact Factor this year.

Of the 383 journals in the JCR that Elsevier publishes on behalf of societies, 64% saw increases in their Impact Factors. Nine of these are number one in their subject category, with four achieving that top position in 2011: PAIN (International Association for the Study of Pain); Annals of Emergency Medicine (American College of Emergency Physicians); Combustion and Flame, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry which now also ranks number one in the Pediatrics category.

The Impact Factor helps evaluate a journal’s impact compared to others in the same field by measuring the frequency with which recent articles in a journal have been cited in a particular year: the 2011 Impact Factor takes into account citations in 2011 to papers published in 2009 and 2010.

EC sets open access policy objectives under Horizon 2020 programme

Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe’s innovation capacity

The European Commission today outlined measures to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe. Broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research. This will boost Europe’s innovation capacity and give citizens quicker access to the benefits of scientific discoveries. In this way, it will give Europe a better return on its €87 billion annual investment in R&D. The measures complement the Commission’s Communication to achieve a European Research Area (ERA), also adopted today.

As a first step, the Commission will make open access to scientific publications a general principle of Horizon 2020, the EU’s Research & Innovation funding programme for 2014-2020. As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible:

  • articles will either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher (‘Gold’ open access) – up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission; or
  • researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication (‘Green’ open access).

The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the results of research funded under their own domestic programmes. The goal is for 60% of European publicly-funded research articles to be available under open access by 2016.

The Commission will also start experimenting with open access to the data collected during publicly funded research (e.g. the numerical results of experiments), taking into account legitimate concerns related to the fundee’s commercial interests or to privacy.

84 % of respondents to a 2011 public consultation said that access to scientific literature is not optimal. Studies show that without speedy access to up-to-date scientific literature, it takes small and medium-sized enterprises up to two years longer to bring innovative products to the market. An EU-funded study showed that currently only 25% of researchers share their data openly.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, said: “Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research and they need seamless access to raw data. We want to bring dissemination and exploitation of scientific research results to the next level. Data is the new oil.”

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, said: “We must give taxpayers more bang for their buck. Open access to scientific papers and data will speed up important breakthroughs by our researchers and businesses, boosting knowledge and competitiveness in Europe.”

Background

Open access gives readers free access to research results over the Internet. The Commission today adopted a Communication that sets out open access policy objectives for the research funded by the Commission through “Horizon 2020” An accompanying Commission Recommendation sets out a complete policy framework for improving access to, and preservation of, scientific information. Together these two initiatives feed into the wider context of achieving a European Research Area (see IP/12/788 and MEMO/12/564 also issued today). This builds on a 2007 Communication on scientific information in the digital age (seeIP/07/190) and on Council conclusions of that same year.

The Commission will:

  • define open access to peer-reviewed publications as the general principle in Horizon 2020, either through open access publishing (‘Gold’ open access) or self-archiving (‘Green’ open access)
  • promote open access to research data (experimental results, observations and computer-generated information etc.) and set a pilot framework in Horizon 2020, taking into account legitimate concerns in relation to privacy, commercial interests and questions related to large data volumes
  • develop and support e-infrastructures to host and share scientific information (publications and data) which are interoperable on European and global level
  • help researchers to comply with open access obligations and promote a culture of sharing.

The Digital Agenda for Europe set out an ambitious ‘open data’ policy covering the full range of information that public bodies across the European Union produce, collect or pay for. The EU’s Innovation Union flagship also explicitly backs Open Access as an essential element in realising the European Research Area (ERA). The Communication and Recommendation on scientific information complement a Communication on “A reinforced European Research Area partnership for excellence and growth’, also being adopted today, which sets out key priorities for completing the European Research Area, including the optimal circulation, access to and transfer of scientific knowledge.

The European Commission will continue to fund projects related to open access. In 2012-2013, the Commission will spend €45 million on data infrastructures andresearch on digital preservation. Funding will continue under the Horizon 2020 programme. During the same period, the Commission will support experimentation with new ways of handling scientific information (e.g. new peer-review methods and ways of measuring article impact).

See also MEMO/12/565

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