Re: Forthcoming OA Developments in France

From: Thierry CHANIER <thierry.chanier_at_univ-fcomte.fr>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:42:15 +0200

Dear all,
Thank you for this translation about the recent OA event in France.

I would like to react upon a very important point in this text which is
not true as far as I know.
You already know that a very important way of pushing researchers to
deposit is to include a requirement statement (un ordre et non une
demande) in the research contract they sign when responding to national
funding agency (NFA). It is or will be included in many such contacts in
US and RCUK.

Let me now reproduce the extract of the article about what is hapenning in
France. It says :
> According to some of the participants at the
> Nancy conference, France's new National Agency of Research (ANR)
> refers
> in its contracts to requirement (or is it a request') linking its
> research funding to the provision of 'Open Access' to the results.
>

I have been responding on April 2006 to such ANR program. I have had to
sign (the signature is important, I will come to it again) with the head
of my lab the form / contract for my application. I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY LINE
NOR ANY WORD about any obligation of deposit of the research work during
or after the completion of the research project funded by the ANR.
Let me precise that I was applying for and I have not yet received the
answer of the ANR. Consequently I do not know whether there is another
contract to sign after you are accepted. But I consider it important to
phrase it in the initial application.

This issue may be one of the most important. The current French policy
(head of CNRS, Inria, etc.) is : the editor's contract comes first, so
dear researcher look at your copyright assignment before doing anything
and deposit only if the editor is willing to.
On the contrary there is a large international discussion in order to have
NFA put in their contract something like : the first contract the
researcher has to take into account is not the editor's one but the one
coming from the NFA.

Hence as a researche we do sign a contract which is a very srtong
committment on the way we use the money of the NFA if we get it. Phrasing
the obligation of OA deposit in this contract will raise the question of
which contract comes first : the editor's one or the NFA's. May be some
people in France are willing to avoid such discussion and choice being
opened ?


What do you think of it (not the last sentence but the whole of it) ?
Thierry Chanier

********************************************************
>
> Below is a synoptic translation of an important French Press release
> about forthcoming OA developments in France. I would add only that CNRS is
> mistaken in its worry that CNRS researchers would resist a self-archiving
> mandate: Multiple author surveys -- international and multisciplinary
> -- as well as repeated experience with actual mandates have shown that
> there will be very high rates of compliance.
>
...
Received on Tue Jun 27 2006 - 15:01:12 BST