A scientific publishing conference taking place this week couldn't come at a better time as the scientific information community teeters on the brink of all out war. At no time before has the open access publishing debate been so truculent. The decision to hire a PR attack dog has not been welcomed.
Scientific Publishing in the European Research Area kicks off on Thursday 15 February in Brussels. All the key players from publishing and the open access movement are in attendance, including Nick Fowlers, Director of Strategy for publishing giants Elsevier, Robert Kiley, Head of E-Strategy at the Wellcome Trust, the funding body that is very pro-Open Access, Blackwell boss Bob Campbell and Ian Russell, the CEO of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP).
The conference will be opened by Janez Potocnik, EU Commissioner for Science and Research, whilst the closing speech will be by Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Information Society and Media.
Discussions will include challenges and opportunities facing scientific publishing, new opportunities for the research community, business models and policy options.
Jan Velterop, open access champion at major STM publisher Springer is attending, but is worried that the scientific information is being divided into distinct camps and on a collision course towards war. "I hope this conference can be constructive," he said, "Sadly there is not enough desire by either side to actually get together and solve the problems of scientific information, which is a pity."
Some believe the conference will focus on the news in recent weeks that the Association of American Publishers (AAP) along with its members Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons has hired a notorious PR attack expert to rubbish the claims of open access supporters. "It is not very helpful, it is drawing this into a battle, when a constructive dialog would be better for everyone," Velterop said.
"The meeting is about online access to European research findings. The European research community is meeting to decide how to maximise access, usage and impact for its research findings."
ReplyDeleteWell - not exactly.
Lets go back a bit. This all started with a letter to the European Commission from six Heads of State and Government (28 April 2005). They asked the Commission to "take necessary steps to improve access to Europe's cultural and scientific heritage".
The Commission published its response, the long awaited "Communication to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee on scientific information in the digital age: access, dissemination and preservation", on 14 February 2007 [1], [2], [3]. In this Communication the Commission undertook, inter alia, to organise "a high-level conference on scientific publishing in the ERA in early 2007". That conference took place on 15 and 16 February 2007. So the European research community (or rather, some 539 assorted people) did meet, and there was (a little) discussion; but decisions are for another day. The conference was simply part of the debate [4].
The Commission's Communication concludes with the words: "The Commission invites the European Parliament and Council to debate the relevant issues on the basis of the present Communication".
So nothing was decided; and the discussion continues - but the arena now shifts to the European Parliament and to the Council of Ministers.
Richard Hardwick
[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:FR:PDF
[2] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:DE:PDF
[3] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2007:0056:FIN:EN:PDF
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/page_en.cfm?id=3184