Echoing its earlier response to a parliamentary committee report that advocated state support for the open-access model of disseminating scientific findings, the British government said earlier this week (February 1) it had no intention of requiring researchers to deposit copies of their publications in free-access repositories.
"The government should be supporting the best and most cost-effective way possible to channel scientific outputs, and at the moment it is not demonstrable that the 'author pays' model is the better system," the government said in a second response to criticisms of its earlier statements. "The action the government has decided on is to facilitate a level playing field, which will enable authors who wish to publish in author-pays journals to do so. This includes working with RCUK [Research Councils UK] on a common policy that allows scientists to publish in an author-pays journal where they want to do so."
"The government recognizes ...
