In the UK, Open Access For All Publicly Funded Research by 2014

The controversies of academic publishing, in particular the ‘academic spring’ campaign against Dutch company Elsevier for its steep and predatory pricing, have been extensively covered by this blog, here, here, here, here, here and here.

In one of the first moves to address these issues, the British government has unveiled plans to allow all publicly funded scientific research to be openly available by 2014. According to Ian Sample of The Guardian, 

“The move reflects a groundswell of support for “open access” publishing among academics who have long protested that journal publishers make large profits by locking research behind online paywalls. “If the taxpayer has paid for this research to happen, that work shouldn’t be put behind a paywall before a British citizen can read it,” [universities and science minister David] Willetts said.”