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