Re: Poynder on OA in Europe

From: Andrew A. Adams <A.A.Adams_at_READING.AC.UK>
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2007 23:26:13 +0900

I think I can help clarify some of these discussions about EU research
(Principally Framework Programme funded) and OA mandates.

It is indeed the case that most commercial (as opposed to HE institute or
non-profit research institute who are the other major players, in my
experience, in EU projects) are reluctant to commit to dissemination of the
results of the research of the project. However, the EU insists and in my own
area of research, we seem to be doing quite well in acting as the
dissemination partner on security-research projects where all or almost all
of the other partners are commercial companies. Of course, Universities have
the greatest experience in dissemination activities, so that isn't surprising.

However, unless they have been gulled by the publishing industry (and it may
be the case with SOME commercial companies, but only until well-informed OA
advocates can make the obvious case to them). Peer-reviewed journal articles
are already revealing some of the results of the EU-funded research. As has
been stressed, it is in the interests of those gaining funding from the EU
that the already published elements of the results of those programs are
readily available to researchers around the world, since this increases their
pool of possible non-profit partners in future research. As has been pointed
out, other commercial players are rarely inconvenienced by the costs of
access to research, principally because of their much narrower interests and
higher concentration on a small number of fields - it is rare to find a
company involved in commercialising research developed in universities that
cannot fund the necessary small number of journals necessary for it, partly
because they will tend to have 50 or more reserachers working in closely
related fields. Universities are broader within subjects and across the
spectrum - oh, and typically we have other issues to balance our small
budgets with.

In addition, not all research-intensive companies working in the EU actually
get involved directly with EU-funded research. A lot of them work as
suggested by Miradon, by taking the publicly available work of universities
and developing it into products, sometimes in direct collaboration with the
academics involved, and sometimes by working primarily from what the
academics publish. These companies can also afford the publications they
need, but as Miradon points out they are likely easily persuadable that their
growth potential is based on the output of university researchers.
Better-informed university researchers will produce more useful things for
them, and we have a lot of evidence of the improvements that will be wrought
by much greater OA of research output.


--
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Received on Mon Mar 19 2007 - 15:07:39 GMT

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