Publicly-funded research should be made available to everybody, according to Minister for Education Morten \u00d8stergaard who is pushing lawmakers to introduce new legislation. Denmark backed EU conclusions about the availability of research in 2007, but successive governments have failed to act, according to Seven59.dk<\/p>\n
\u00bbPoliticians have had a tendency to beat around the bush on this but the time has come to make demands on researchers,\u00ab he said to the Information newspaper. <\/p>\n
The Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation launched its own policy of Open Access \u2013 free, immediate, permanent online access to the full text of research articles for anyone, \u2018webwide\u2019 \u2013 last week, the same model as the Green Open Access now endorsed by the Minister who said it\u2019s unfair that universities are forced to pay millions to scientific journals in order to access their own and others\u2019 research. <\/p>\n
Under the minister\u2019s new \u2018green model\u2019, researchers will still be required to submit their articles to scientific journals, ensuring quality control, but will no longer have to request permission to publish the article in the university\u2019s own database, which would become free for all after an agreed waiting period. <\/p>\n
Legislation has been delayed for so long because publishers have argued whether Danish-language journals could survive financially if their articles were made available for free.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI\u2019m not opposed to publishers making money, but it\u2019s completely wrong that taxpayers should fund huge profits for them\u00ab he said.<\/p>\n
universitypost@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n