1.4 Please provide the name of your organisation (if you are responding as a citizen, enter “citizen”):
TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue
1.5 Please provide your country of residence / establishment: Belgium
2. What role for Europe?
2.1 There are already many developments regarding access to and preservation of scientific information in Europe, at governmental, funding body and institutional level. For some years, the European Union has also been developing policies in these areas.
In your opinion, in what specific areas can and should the European Union best contribute to improving the circulation of knowledge, and specifically access to and preservation of scientific information (including both publications and data)?
Policy formulation at European level on access and preservation issues agree strongly
Co-ordinating existing initiatives in EU Member States agree strongly
Supporting the development of a European network of repositories (online archives) agree strongly
Encourage universities, libraries, funding bodies, etc., to implement specific actions agree strongly
2.2 Comments
EU funding policy in the area of research should mandate unrestricted access to data produced with public financing. Clear conditions should be included in grant regulations to assure affordability and accessibilty concerning the knowledge produced. Secrecy and IPR protection of life science research, such as clinical trials on chemical substances and medicines, should be waiven in public interest
3. Access to digital scientific information (including open access): scientific publications
3.1 Do you agree with the following statement: “there is NO problem with access to scientific publications in Europe”? disagree strongly
3.2 How would you rate the importance of the following potential barriers to access to scientific publications?
Insufficient national/regional strategies/policies on access to scientific publications very important
High prices of articles/journal subscriptions very important
Limited or reduced library budgets
Different Value Added Tax (VAT) rates for online media and printed material
Lack of awareness and interest within the research community on access and open access
No incentive system in place encouraging and rewarding practices that enhance access very important
3.3 Comments
Open source scientific publication should be a condition for recieveing EU research fianancing. Publicly financed knowledge should not be heavily privatized and monopolized by IPR barriers.
3.4 Do you think that publications resulting from publicly funded research should, as a matter of principle, be available free of charge to readers on the internet (i.e. open access mode)? agree strongly
3.5 Do you think that open access can increase access to and dissemination of scientific publications? agree strongly
3.6 Do you think that open access to scientific publications can co-exist with the traditional scientific publication system? agree strongly
3.7 Open access to scientific publications can be achieved in different ways, in particular through researchers self-archiving in repositories (“green open access”) and through publication in open access journals for a fee (“gold open access”).
Which of the following different modes should public research policy facilitate in order to increase the number and share of scientific publications available in open access? Please rate the following options from 1 to 4 (1 = first choice; 4 = last choice):
Open access publishing (author-pays model/”gold open access”) 1
Self-archiving (“green open access”) 2
A combination of self-archiving and open access publishing 3
Funded conversion of traditional subscription-based journals to open access journals 4
3.8 Comments
3.9 In the case of self-archiving (“green open access”), what embargo period (period of time during which publication is not yet open access) is desirable?
18 months disagree strongly
12 months disagree strongly
9 months disagree strongly
6 months agree strongly
3.10 Other embargo period/comments
4. Access to digital scientific information (including open access): research data
4.1 Do you agree with the following statement: “generally speaking, there is NO access problem to research data in Europe”? disagree strongly
4.2 How would you rate the importance of the following potential barriers to enhancing access to research data?
Insufficient national/regional strategies/policies on access to research data very important
Lack of funding to develop and maintain the necessary data infrastructures
Insufficient credit given to researchers making research data available/lack of incentives very important
Lack of mandates to deposit research data very important
Lack of data management requirements in research projects very important
Confidentiality/privacy issues very important
4.3 Comments
IPRs are used in detriment to innovative sharing of data in the public interest, especially in the fields of health, medicine and environment. The EUs IPR enforcement strategy and Trade strategy often contradict openness and construct barriers to socially valuable access to knowledge.
4.4 Do you think that research data that is publicly available and that results from PUBLIC funding should, as a matter of principle, be available for re-use and free of charge on the internet? agree strongly
4.5 Comments
4.6 Do you think that research data that is publicly available and that results from PARTLY PUBLIC AND PARTLY PRIVATE funding should, as a matter of principle, be available for re-use and free of charge on the internet? agree strongly
4.7 Comments
5. Preservation of digital scientific information
5.1 Do you agree with the following statement: “Generally speaking, the issue of preservation of scientific information is at present sufficiently addressed”? disagree strongly
5.2 Do you agree with the following statements regarding potential barriers to enhancing preservation of scientific information in the digital age?
It is not always clear which scientific information should be preserved agree strongly
It is not always clear who is responsible for preserving scientific information (research organisations, libraries, governments?) agree strongly
There is no harmonised approach to legal deposit (legal requirement that copies of publications be submitted to a repository, usually a library)
Funding for preservation is inadequate
The quality and interoperability of repositories need to be further developed agree strongly
5.3 Comments
6. Comments
6.1 Please provide any further comments or inputs in the space below.
EU funding of scientific research should be contingent on the disclosure of raw and processed data, the publication through interoperable open source journals and the sharing of information concerning public health concerns. The EU should consider mandating forms of equitable licensing, the concession of innovation inducement prizes under conditions of ceding IPR rights and other economic incentives for open source research.