University of Southampton Press Release 16 February
2005
International meeting in Southampton could create a worldwide policy for
Open Access
A meeting of international institutions which have signed up to Open
Access (OA) could result in a united policy creating a huge growth in
free access to research findings.
The Berlin 3 Open Access Meeting: Progress in Implementing the Berlin
Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities
will be hosted by the University of Southampton on Monday 28 February
and Tuesday 1 March.
The purpose of this meeting, which will include representatives from
Europe, the US, India and Pakistan, is to implement the Berlin
Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities,
which has now been signed by 55 major international research institutes
since its launch in Berlin in October 2003,an initiative widely hailed
at the time as world-leading.
University of Southampton Professor Stevan Harnad, one of the founders
of the OA worldwide movement comments: ‘The Berlin Declaration itself
was only an abstract expression of the principle that scholarly and
scientific research should be free online to all potential users
worldwide. We now need to implement the Declaration so as to make it a
practical policy which institutions that have signed can commit to
adopting.’
During the 2-day event, representatives from some of the world’s most
prestigious research institutions, including France’s CNRS and Germany’s
Max-Planck Institute, will present their experience of implementing the
Berlin Declaration in their organizations.
Southampton University itself will be proposing a Unified Open Access
Provision Policy, as a practical way to implement the Berlin OA
Declaration based on the successful approach it has recently adopted and
announced. It will suggest that universities and research institutions
worldwide should adopt a policy that all of their published research
journal articles (whether in OA or non-OA journals) are deposited –
immediately and permanently -- in their own institutional OA Archives,
freely accessible to all potential users worldwide (rather than just to
those whose institutions can afford the access-tolls of the non-OA
journals).
The meeting will conclude with a discussion on implementation of the
latest Berlin roadmap and a call to new organisations to sign the
Declaration.
Notes to Editors
1. For further information about Berlin 3, please visit the meeting’s
website at
http://www.eprints.org/berlin3/program.html
<
http://www.eprints.org/berlin3/program.html>
Details of the University of Southampton policy announcement can be
found at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/667
<
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/667>
Details of last month’s OA workshops at Southampton can be found at:
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/669
<
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/669>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/673
<
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/673>
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/676
<
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/news/676>
2. The University of Southampton is the home of GNU EPrints software,
the most widely used software for building Institutional Repositories,
and the JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee) TARDis (Targeting
Academic Research for Deposit and Disclosure) project, which has been
investigating the technical, cultural and academic issues which surround
institutional repositories.
3. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research
institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and
scholarship. The University has over 20,000 students and over 5000
staff. Its annual turnover is in the region of £270 million.
Useful web sites for journalists
www.experts.soton.ac.uk - an A-Z guide of University experts
For further information, please contact:
Professor Stevan Harnad, ECS, Tel: 023 8059 2582, email:
harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk <mailto:harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Joyce Lewis, Communications Manager, Electronics and Computer Science,
University of Southampton, Tel: 023 8059 5453,
email:j.k.lewis_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
Received on Wed Feb 16 2005 - 14:53:10 GMT