25 US University Provosts Support Senate Bill on Open Access. [Please see the full text of the letter at http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/groups/CICMembers/archive/documents/FRPAAletterFinal... . The universities include Harvard, University of California, Pennsylvania State University, University of Michigan, Texas A&M University, Syracuse University, University of Iowa, Purdue University, and Carnegie-Mellon University]. A second set of over 20 university provosts came out with their support to FRPAA within a few days of the first 25. ------------------------------------------------------- Twenty-five US University Provosts have issued an open letter to the US Higher Education community, voicing strong support for the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006 (FRPAA). In the letter, the Provosts state, "We endorse FRPAA's aims and urge the academic community, individually and collectively, to voice support for its passage." FRPAA would require Federal agencies whose extramural research budgets exceed $100 million to develop policies ensuring open, public access to the research supported by their grants or conducted by their employees. The Act is currently awaiting consideration by the US Senate. The signatories of the letter, which include the Provosts of Harvard and the University of California, write, "We believe that this legislation represents a watershed and provides an opportunity for the entire U.S. higher education and research community to draw upon their traditional partnerships and collaboratively realize the unquestionably good intentions of the Bill's framers - broadening access to publicly funded research in order to accelerate the advancement of knowledge and maximize the related public good." The open letter is available on the Committee of Institutional Cooperation website. ___________________________________________________________ Funding agencies (and governments) in developing countries such as India should do well to mandate open, public access to the research supported by their grants. Vice chancellors of universities, directors of research centres, heads of funding institutions and science academies and professional societies should urge the government to enact appropriate legislation (similar to the FRPAA in the USA). And without waiting for the legislation to be in place, they should set up interoperable institutional open access archives (as has been done at the Indian Institute of Science, NCL, NAL, NIO, RRI, IIA and a few other institutions) AND GO ONE STEP FURTHER and mandate OA (as has been done at NIT, Rourkela). Subbiah Arunachalam