Friday, February 22, 2013


Interesting times in the United Kingdom!

Some time ago the Research Council of the United Kingdom choose to select Gold Open Access. This means that the Funders pay the publishers for open access rights for scholarly publications. The alternative is Green Open Access where the author deposits a draft of his/her article in the institutional repository thus incurring no costs whatsover.

 A report published today by the House of Lords Science and Technical Committee recommends determining whether other countries are mandating Gold or Green OA. The National Principles on Open Access published before Christmas clearly show that Ireland has opted for Green Open Access and not just because we cannot afford Gold but because it is the right thing to do!

The House of Lords report has criticised the RCUK policy stating "There are still many unknowns concering the impact of the open access policy, which is why the RCUK must commit to a wide ranging review of its policy in 2014, 2016 and before it expects full compliance in 2018". Further on the report states "Open Access is an inexorable trend. The Government must ensure that in further developing our capabilities to share research they do no inadvertently damage the "complex ecosystem" of research communication in the U.K."
Lets hope they see the "Green Light" as our government has done already!