I think this a great idea. The letter is an excellent draft and I intend to follow the suggestion to send it to my MEP.
I have also followed the request of M. Miradon and made an effort to edit the letter for conciseness.
I hope this is of use.
Yours, Chris Armbruster
Rapporteur
"Academic Publishing in Europe: Innovation & Publishing " - under the Patronage of Dr. Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of Education and Research in Germany and under the Auspices of the EU Research Directorate-General
http://www.ape2007.eu/text/0702ape07_short_report1.pdf
Research articles at
http://ssrn.com/author=434782
^Õ On diversifying and increasing university income: autonomy and self-reliance after the Entrepreneurial University
^Õ Open access in social and cultural science: Innovative moves to enhance access, inclusion and impact in scholarly communication
^Õ Cyberscience and the knowledge-based economy, open access and trade publishing: from contradiction to compatibility with nonexclusive copyright licensing
+ + +
Dear Member of Parliament/Member of the European Parliament
I understand that Parliament has received a Communication from the European Commission "On Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access, Dissemination and Preservation". There is an accompanying "Staff Working Paper" - details in footnotes [1] and [2] below.
European Research programmes are well structured at the start, but is difficult to find the results at the end - they are dispersed and hard to find. A solution is at hand, however: All published results from EU-supported research projects should be made available via one well-organised EU web portal.
I think that it is reasonable to ask the Commission to do this. The
three necessary constituents of a 'portal' are -
(i) the published research documents,
(ii) a web site,
(iii) a data standard for classifying and linking the documents.
The European Commission already possesses (i) and (ii) and (iii);
(i) The Commission's "Seventh Framework Programme Grant Agreement"
already requires that every research contract funded under the
Seventh Framework Programme should send to the Commission an
electronic copy of every publication produced, and that the
Commission shall, with appropriate safeguards, be authorised to
publish every document sent to it - see footnote [3].
(ii) The Commission already has numerous web pages from earlier
Framework Programmes, each showing the reports of its particular
research projects - some examples are listed in [4].
(iii) The Commission has already developed a "Common European Research
Information Format". The Commission has also sent it to the
member states as a formal recommendation - see [5].
However the Commission has not yet joined up (i) + (ii) + (iii). I have sketched some of the current rather untidy situation in footnote [4].
I trust that you and your colleagues will investigate the matter when you discuss "On Scientific Information in the Digital Age: Access, Dissemination and Preservation".
It should not be too difficult or expensive for the Commission to ensure that the publications that are sent to the Commission, are made
available via a web portal, using the information format which the Commission itself recommends.
If this is done, then all published documents from the research that
is funded in the Seventh Framework Programme will become available
over the web. Industry, research workers and citizens will all
benefit - and they should be grateful to the Commission and to you.
Yours sincerely
N. Miradon
+ + +
Footnotes
1. "Communication from the Commission to the European
Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social
Committee on scientific information in the digital age:
access, dissemination and preservation {SEC(2007)181}" /*
COM/2007/0056 final */
in English, French and German at
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:EN:PDF
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:FR:PDF
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:DE:PDF
2. "Commission staff working document - Document accompanying
the Communication from the Commission to the European
Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social
Committee on scientific information in the digital age:
access, dissemination and preservation {COM(2007) 56 final}"
/* SEC/2007/0181 final */
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/scientific_information/swp_en.pdf"
3. "FP7 Grant Agreement - Annex II General Conditions
Version 20.12.06 ISC clean 3."
ftp://ftp.cordis.lu/pub/fp7/docs/annex2_general_conditions_20061222_en.pdf
Article II.30 (Dissemination) says -
"... Furthermore, an electronic copy of the published version or
the final manuscript accepted for publication shall also be
provided to the Commission at the same time for the purpose set
out in Article II.12(2) if this does not infringe any rights of
third parties."
And Article II.12. (Information and communication) says -
"... 2. The Commission shall be authorised to publish, in
whatever form and on or by whatever medium, the following
information: ... - the details/references and the abstracts of
scientific publications relating to foreground and, where
provided pursuant to Article II.30, the published version or the
final manuscript accepted for publication; ..."
4. The "Fifth framework programme of the European Community
for research, technological development and demonstration
activities (1998 - 2002)" was divided into thematic programmes and
horizontal programmes (TP and HP).
Programmes TP and HP were divided into sub programmes, and each
sub programme was further divided into key actions (KA).
Here are the starter web pages of TP1
TP 1 Quality of life and management of living resources
TP 1, KA 1:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/quality-of-life/TP 1, KA
.1/index_number_en.htm
TP 1, KA 2: ?
TP 1, KA 3:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/quality-of-life/cell-factory/volume1/area_en.html
TP 1, KA 4:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/quality-of-life/TP 1, KA
.4/TP 1, KA .4_reports_en.html
TP 1, KA 5:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/quality-of-life/TP 1, KA
.5/en/toc-area.html
TP 1, KA 6:
http://ec.europa.eu//research/quality-of-life/TP 1, KA
.6/TP 1, KA .6.html
TP 1, KA 7:
http://ec.europa.eu//research/quality-of-life/pdf/generic-rtd.pdf
Note that each of these pages has a different design, and that none of
them has a search engine.
If you are looking for particular information, you may also need to
look through the rest of the structure (web pages not listed here)
1 Thematic programmes
TP 2 User friendly information society
TP 3 Competitive and sustainable growth
TP 4 Energy, environment and sustainable development
2 Horizontal programmes
HP 1 Confirming the international role of community research
HP 2 Promotion of innovation and encouragement of participation of SMEs
HP 3 Improving human research potential and the socio-economic
knowledge base
5. CERIF (Common European Research Information Format) was
developed with the support of the EC (European Commission) in
two major phases: 1987-1990 and 1997-1999. It is an European
Union Recommendation to member states.
http://www.eurocris.org:8080/lenya/euroCRIS/live/index.html
/ends
Received on Sat Mar 24 2007 - 11:35:23 GMT