Brussels, 21/08/2013 (Agence Europe) - The shift towards making research findings available free of charge for readers - so-called “open access” - has been confirmed in a study funded by the European Commission. The results of the study were made known on Wednesday 21 August.
The study shows that open access has reached the tipping point, with around 50% of scientific papers published in 2011 now available for free. This is about twice the level estimated in previous studies. Furthermore, over 40% of scientific peer reviewed articles published worldwide between 2004 and 2011 is now available online in open access form.
By making research results more accessible, open access can contribute to better and more efficient science, and to innovation in the public and private sectors, according to European Commissioner for Research and Innovation Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. In her opinion, “putting research results in the public sphere makes science better and strengthens our knowledge-based economy”.
The study looked at the availability of scholarly publications in 22 fields of knowledge in the European Research Area, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and the United States. Currently, in several countries and disciplines, more than 50% of papers are now available for free. Free availability of the majority of articles has been reached in the fields of general science and technology, biomedical research, biology and mathematics and statistics. The fields where open access availability is most limited are the social sciences and humanities and applied sciences, engineering and technology.
The Commission recalled on Wednesday that its communication adopted in July 2012 (see EUROPE 10657) identified open access as “a core means to improve knowledge circulation and thus innovation in Europe”. This is the reason why open access will be mandatory for all scientific publications produced with funding from Horizon 2020, the EU's research and innovation funding programme for 2014-2020 (see EUROPE 10874). (OL/transl.fl)