EU plan for research to hit publishers

The European Union, which controls one of the world’s largest science budgets, said on the 17 July 2012 it would give free access to all research funded by European taxpayers, in a move that could hit the profits of scientific publishers such as Reed Elsevier, Wiley and Springer.

Analysts reported that the proposals by the European Commission to release for free and to a wider audience articles usually held by expensive academic journals would benefit innovation, but would force publishers, which currently generate about $8bn in revenues, to revolutionise their business models.

EU officials said that starting from 2014 all scientific papers that have benefited from the Horizon 2020 programme worth over €80bn will have to be freely accessible through 'open access' online databases.

European Commission: RAPID: Press Release: IP/12/790: Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe's innovation capacity http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/790&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: DG Information Society: Public Sector Information: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm

Website: Science Europe http://www.scienceeurope.org/

European Voice, 7.6.12: Red light for green open access approach http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/red-light-for-green-open-access-approach/74539.aspx

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