BMJ | Results of publicly funded research should be available to all, says web creator

Results of publicly funded research should be available to all, says web creator

Zosia Kmietowicz

A group of eight UK academics that includes Tim Berners-Lee, who created the world wide web, has called for all publicly funded research to be made freely available on the internet.

In an open letter to the Research Councils UK (RCUK) the group is highly critical of the Association of Learned and Professional Society, which represents non-profit academic publishers and which has opposed such moves to open access. The society claimed that a proposal by RCUK—a strategic partnership of the United Kingdom’s eight research councils—that all research papers resulting from its funding should be archived on the internet "will accelerate the move to a disastrous scenario." This scenario, the society said, would bring financial ruin to many journals as librarians cancel subscriptions and would lead to the collapse of quality controls and peer review processes...