The proposal that the European Commission should "set up a web-based
repository for published project results" was suggested by EURAB and
subsequently supported by the Cour des Comptes [footnote 1 of page 17 of [0]).
But Professor Harnad rejects this idea. He says that instead of running its
own repository, the European Commission should harvest from the recipients'
Institutional Repositories [1].
This would be fine, if all 100% of those institutional repositories were up
and running. But are they? I just looked for ["Seventh Framework Programme"
projects] in Google. The first hit was the "WELTEMP" project (Water
Electrolysis at Elevated Temperatures) [2].
I could not find any of the WELTEMP partners [3] listed in the Registry of
Open Access Repositories [4].
The coordinator's university (DTU) is listed on Den Danske
Forskningsdatabase // Danish Research Database [5]; but today (2008-04-28)
this says "NB! The Danish Research Database is currently not being updated,
we are working on a new solution planned to release in the 1st quarter of
2008". As regards Technical University of Denmark (DTU), it says "literature
and projects available for 1996 - 1999 (2000 onwards will follow)".
I have nothing against WELTREMP or any of its partners. On the contrary, I
suspect that they are representative of quite a lot of grant recipients,
i.e. that somewhat less than 100% of Framework Programme 7 grantees have got
a fully functional Institutional Repository. This may have changed by the
time we get to the next Framework Programme - lets hope that it has. But for
the moment, since the Commission already has a repository with 100%
coverage, I cannot think that EURAB and the Cour des Comptes are wrong to
suggest that this repository simply be put on the web.
N Miradon
[0]
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:026:0001:0038:FR:PDF
[1]
http://listserver.sigmaxi.org/sc/wa.exe?A2=ind08&L=american-scientist-open-access-forum&D=1&O=D&F=l&S=&P=36347
[2]
http://www.weltemp.eu/partners.html
[3]
CH INDUSTRIE HAUTE TECHNOLOGIE SA
http://www.iht.ch
CZ INSTITUTE OF MACROMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY OF THE ASCR VVI.
http://www.imc.cas.cz
CZ VYSOKA SKOLA CHEMICKO-TECHNOLOGICKA V PRAZE
http://www.vscht.cz
DK DANISH POWER SYSTEMS APS
http://www.daposy.dk
DK DANMARKS TEKNISKE UNIVERSITET
http://www.dtu.dk
IT ACTA SPA
http://www.acta-nanotech.com
NO NORGES TEKNISK ~V NATURVITENSKABELIGE UNIVERSITET
http://www.ntnu.no
?? TANTALUM TECHNOLOGIES A/S
http://www.tantaline.com
[4]
http://roar.eprints.org/
[5]
http://www.forskningsdatabasen.dk
Received on Mon Apr 28 2008 - 19:02:25 BST