Pit-Bulls vs. Petitions: A Historic Time for Open Access Stevan Harnad 30 Jan 2007 14:45 UTC
** Apologies for Cross-Posting ** Dear all, Tempting as it is to keep chattering about pit-bulls and commercial venality http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070122/full/445347a.html could we perhaps refocus on something far, far more important and substantive that is going on at the moment? This is where today's real historic Open Access (OA) developments are transpiring: http://www.ec-petition.eu/ The petition in support of the European Commission's Proposal to mandate OA self-archiving has already amassed 13,000 signatures in 13 days and is still growing. It is being signed not only by individual grassroots researchers but by universities, learned societies, scientific academies: Rectors/principals of research organisations (51) Heads of university/research institution departments or schools (44) International societies or research-based organisations (38) National societies or research-based organisations (35) Research-based or research-centred charities/foundations (21) National or international research funding bodies (8) National academies (3) Rectors' Conferences/University associations (2) Government departments (2) The petition is also being signed by institutional libraries, research organisations and publishers: Institutional libraries (144) R&D-based companies (66) Publishers (30) International or national library organisations (26) National ICT organisations (11) Museums (research-based) (2) Please consult http://www.ec-petition.eu/ as these figures are changing by the minute. (And if you or your organisation support the OA mandate proposals, please sign too.) In addition to this petition in support of proposed mandates (of which the EC's is one, but of course the United States has a huge proposed mandate pending too: the FRPAA), the number of actually adopted mandates is growing steadily too (and will no doubt be accelerated by the growth of the EC petition): ROARMAP now lists 58 registered OA policies, 27 mandates (21 adopted, 6 proposed) http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php 11 institutional and departmental mandates: AUSTRALIA* institutional-mandate Queensland U. Technology AUSTRALIA* institutional-mandate U. Tasmania EUROPE* institutional-mandate CERN: European Org Nuclear Res INDIA* institutional-mandate Nat Inst Tech Rourkela INDIA* institutional-mandate Bharathidasan U. PORTUGAL* institutional-mandate Universidade do Minho SWITZERLAND* institutional-mandate U. Zurich AUSTRALIA* departmental-mandate U. Tasmania School of Computing FRANCE* departmental-mandate Lab Psych Neurosci Cognitives UNITED KINGDOM* departmental-mandate U Southampton Dept ECS UNITED KINGDOM* departmental-mandate Brunel Univ Sch Info Sys Comp Maths 10 funder mandates: AUSTRALIA* funder-mandate Australian Res Cncl AUSTRALIA* funder-mandate National Health and Medical Res Cncl UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Arthritis Res Foundation UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Biotech Bio Sci Res Cncl (BBSRC) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Chief Sci Off (Scottish Exec Health) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Economic and Social Res Cncl (ESRC) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Medical Res Cncl (MRC) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate National Environmental Res Cncl (NERC) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Particle Phys & Astron Res Cncl (PPARC) UNITED KINGDOM* funder-mandate Wellcome Trust 6 funder mandate proposals: CANADA* proposed funder-mandate Can Insts Health Res (CIHR) EUROPE* proposed funder-mandate European Res Advisory Board (EURAB) EUROPE* proposed funder-mandate European Res Cncl (ERC) EUROPE* proposed funder-mandate European Commission UNITED STATES* proposed funder-mandate Fed Res Pub Access Act (FRPAA) UNITED STATES* proposed funder-mandate Nat Insts Health (NIH) And the FRPAA proposal already has the support of most of the US Universities' presidents and provosts: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/index.html So let us accelerate OA's now-unstoppable progress toward the optimal and inevitable. The sterile debates of the past are behind us. Stevan Harnad American Scientist Open Access Forum http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html