Wellcome Trust

Academics are — slowly — adopting the view that publicly funded research should be made freely available. But data released yesterday suggest that, given the choice, even researchers who publish in open-access journals want to place restrictions on how their papers can be re-used — for example, sold by others for commercial profit. Read More »

When people hear about antibiotic resistance creating “superbugs”, they tend to think of new diseases and pandemics spreading out of control. The real threat is less flamboyant, but still serious: existing problems getting worse, sometimes dramatically. Infections acquired in hospital are a prime example. They are already a problem, but with more antibiotic resistance they could become a much worse one. Elective surgery, such as hip replacements, now routine, would come to carry what might be seen as unacceptable risk. So might Caesarean sections. The risks of procedures which suppress the immune system, such as organ transplants and cancer chemotherapies, would increase...

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Wellcome Trust no longer wants to pay for medical research that ends up guarded behind a pay wall, and the U.K.'s largest private funder of medical research is considering several ways to bring a proverbial wrecking ball to such pay walls and make research papers available for free online under an open-access framework. Read More »

One of the world's largest funders of science is to throw its weight behind a growing campaign to break the stranglehold of academic journals and allow all research papers to be shared online. Read More »