However, a recent report by the Publishing Research Consortium indicated that more than 70% of the SMEs surveyed reported experiencing difficulties in accessing such information.2 Providing better access for non-academic stakeholders, especially SMEs, is an important consideration in creating an effective innovation agenda. As awareness of the potential benefits of opening access to scientific research results has increased, a growing number of funders have directly addressed this issue. In its 2005 report on scientific publishing, the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development succinctly captured the policy imperative, specifically noting the potential for improved ROI: Governments would boost innovation and get a better return on their investment in publicly funded research if they made research findings more widely available, and by doing so, they would maximize social returns on public investments.3 Over the past several years, a number of policies requiring deposit of publicly funded research outputs in open online repositories, and ensuring free access to the general public within a specified time frame have been proposed, and in some cases, implemented. The most visible US policy that addresses this call is that of the National Institutes of Health, which in 2008 required that all researchers funded by NIH deposit a copy of any manuscript reporting on the results of NIH-funded research into the agency’s online repository (PubMed Central) to be made publicly accessible no later than 12 months after appearance in a peer-reviewed journal. The European Union (EU) has taken an even more aggressive stance, by adopting what they term the “Fifth Freedom,”4 the free movement of knowledge, as a core tenet of the EU’s basic mission. The EU has proposed a policy similar to that of the NIH for the results of its funded research, with an even shorter embargo period of six months. These examples are just two of more than three dozen policies that have been established by public funding bodies around the world.5 Studies of ROI in Open Access Policies While there is ample anecdotal evidence of the benefits of policies mandating open access to publicly funded research, the relative costs and benefits and the actual return on investment have not been fully studied. However, in just the RLI 273 28 Public Access to Federally Funded Research ( C O N T I N U E D ) DECEMBER 2010 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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