EPT urges developing country research needs in letter to new Obama appointees

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2009 14:51:30 -0500

    [ The following text is in the "windows-1252" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "iso-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]


SATURDAY, 17 JANUARY 2009

  EPT urges developing country research needs in letter to new Obama
  appointees

A letter from the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development to
recent research appointees to the Obama administration: Professor
John Holdren, Professor Harold Varmus, Professor Jane Lubchenko,
Professor Stevan Chu.

January 1st 2009

Dear Professors,

It is with great pleasure that we note your recent appointments in
the new USadministration. The appointment of yourselves, together
with other prestigious scientists to advise on energy, the
environment, health and conservation issues, so critical to the
planet, is extremely encouraging to scientists everywhere. We write
as Trustees of the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development1,
working with developing country scientists and publishers to promote
equality of access to essential research publications, and wish you
well in your endeavours.

The resolution, through science, of urgent global problems is a
priority for the safety and economic progress of all nations, yet
cannot be achieved by any country in isolation. We write to you,
therefore, to urge you to ensure that access to publicly funded
research is free to all potential users, particularly to those in low
economy regions where the costs of commercial journals are
prohibitive, yet where the problems are most severely felt. Without
an international perspective on disease control, climate change and
other global problems, there will always be limited success, since
scientific knowledge in the developing world is a crucial element to
the implementation of appropriate and sustainable solutions.

The international movement towards the twin approaches to achieving
free and open access to research findings2 ? open access
institutional repositories (current total 1239)3 holding deposits of
published, peer-reviewed articles, plus open access peer-reviewed
journals (current total 3812)4 ? is already well established. These
collectively provide open access to several million refereed
published research articles. Additionally, there are now 31 open
access mandates from universities and research institutions requiring
the deposit of their own research article output, whether
institutionally or externally funded, in their own institutional
repositories, as well as 30 open access mandates from major research
funding organisations5 requiring the deposit of articles arising from
their financial support.

As measurement tools become established, the usage of such material
is now seen to be spectacularly high, indicating the very real need
for access to research previously locked in high-priced journals,
accessible only to those able to afford them.

It remains of great importance, now that the groundwork is laid, that
these developments are supported and extended to all research in
every discipline. Already the NIH Open Access mandate exists,
together with other mandates in the USA, in Europe (including the
European Research Council and 6 of the 7 UK Research
Councils), Asia, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, many requiring
deposit of research publications in low cost and interoperable
Institutional Repositories. Barack Obama's CTO forum requesting
proposals for top priorities for the administration ranks access to
publicly funded research information as the 12th most important, as
of today. It is clear from this widespread activity that there is
universal support by the global research community for the free
exchange of essential scientific information and data, accelerating
progress and enabling advantage to be taken of powerful new web
technology.

We write in the hope that you will be able to use your good offices
to ensure the adoption of Open Access policies by all federal
agencies, thusencouraging further equivalent policy adoptions
throughout the world. Environmental protection, the cure and
treatment of malaria, HIV/AIDS, the containment of emerging new
infectious diseases, the conservation of biodiversity and energy are
all urgent issues particularly affecting the low economy regions.
They cannot be solved without international scientific cooperation,
depending as it must on free and open access to research
publications.

We wish you much success in your new appointment and urge that the
wider needs of the developing world will be high on your list of
priorities. Open Access to research findings by mandated deposit in
Institutional Repositories is a very low cost and achievable aim with
disproportionately large benefits.

With our good wishes for 2009 and your future work,

Sincerely yours,

Barbara Kirsop, Secretary/Trustee,

On behalf of Trustees of the Electronic Publishing Trust for
Development

EPT - Electronic Publishing Trust for Development and EPT Blog

 1. BOAI ? Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002
 2. ROAR ? Registry of Open Access Repositories
 3. DOAJ ? Directory of Open Access Journals
 4. ROARmap ? Registry of Open Access mandates
 5. OSTI E-print Network, - links to servers, sites and documents of
    interest to the Department of Energy's research
Received on Sat Jan 17 2009 - 20:04:07 GMT