Research Integrity

The recent controversy over the Boston tapes has raised concerns about the protection of research in third level institutions. Clare Daly put a question to the Minister for Education and Science for his views. She received  a written answer on Tuesday, May 27th, 2014 as follows
"
The position is that the higher education institutions are autonomous bodies
and their day to day operations are matters for the governing bodies of each
institution. However, I understand that universities and institutes of
technology have procedures in place to ensure that research undertaken,
including the treatment of confidential information, is in keeping with
accepted good practice. Indeed, many have dedicated ethics committees to
oversee issues such as this. Furthermore, a policy statement on ensuring
research integrity in Ireland will shortly be launched and articulates the
commitment of higher education institutions to the highest standards of
integrity in carrying out their research. This shared statement of commitment
is intended to ensure full confidence in the Irish research system for
participants, other stakeholders and the international research community."
Article source: http://claredaly.ie/protecting-archives-in-light-of-boston-tapes-controversy/

Tipping Point

A study funded by the European Commission has stated that open access is reaching a "tipping point" with around 50% of scientific papers published in 2011 now available for free. This is about twice the level estimated in previous studies, explained by a refined methodology and a wider definition of open access.  The study also estimates that more than 40% of scientific peer reviewed articles published worldwide between 2004 and 2011 are now available online in open access form. The study looks at the EU and some neighbouring countries as well as Brazil, Canada, Japan and the USA.
The European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science, Ms. Maire Geoghegan-Quinn said

"these findings underline that open access is here to stay. Putting research results in the public sphere makes science better and strengthens our knowledge-based economy"

Therefore open access will be mandatory for all scientific publications produced with funding from Horizon 2020, the EU's Research and Innovation Funding Programme for 2014-2020. The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the Commission in their domestic programmes. This means that researchers must make their articles available through an open access repository no later than 6 months (12 months for Social Sciences and Humanities) after publication.

The study was undertaken by Science-Metrix, a research evaluation company who produced three reports looking at Open Access Availability, Open Access Policies and Open Access data. The links to these reports are provided below.
http://www.science-metrix.com/pdf/SM_EC_OA_Availability_2004-2011.pdf
http://www.science-metrix.com/pdf/SM_EC_OA_Policies.pdf
http://www.science-metrix.com/pdf/SM_EC_OA_Data.pdf 

Access the Horizon 2020 website here 

Open Access Publishing

Have you ever looked for a comprehensive explanation of Open Access Publishing and struggled to explain the concept to others? Help is now at hand! Piled High and Deeper (PhD Comics) have produced a short video introduction to the topic which is really good which is available on YouTube and you can access it here

Open Access save lives!

This is an interview with Jack Andraka, a 16 year old American teenager who has made a medical breakthrough in cancer research. He was able to do this only because he found the majority of research articles he needed on open access. Watch the interview here

Welcome Trust Extends Open Access Policy

Wellcome Trust extends open access policy to include scholarly monographs and book chapters. The Wellcome Trust today (30 May, 2013) announces that it is to extend its open access policy to include all scholarly monographs and book chapters written by its grantholders as part of their Trust-funded research. More at

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2013/WTP052746.htm

Research Data the next thing to go Open Access?

 President Obama signed an Executive Order directing his administration to take historic steps to make government-held data more accessible to the public and to entrepreneurs and others as fuel for innovation and economic growth. The Executive Order declares that information is a valuable resource and strategic asset for the nation; Newly generated government data will be required to be made available in open, machine-readable format by default -- enhancing their accessibility and usefulness, and ensuring privacy and security; These executive actions will allow entrepreneurs and companies to take advantage of this information -- fueling economic growth in communities across the Nation. Watch this short video and find out more about today's announcement:

Open Access Survey

The Irish Times survey on Open Access is now live and will remain open until May 12th. This is part of the Special Initiative for Citizen Engagement that Atomium Culture is developing together with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, El Pais, Il Sole 24 Ore, Der Standard and the Irish Times. Here's the link to the Irish Times introductory article on Open Access:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/have-your-say-about-science-1.1386441

This is the link to the survey itself: http://haveyoursay.eisri-summit.eu/index.php/496499/lang-en

This is the third "Have your say about science' survey to run in April/May by national newspapers in 5 pilot countries.