Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 17:17:45 +0000 (GMT) From: Subbiah Arunachalam Friends: http://www.ec-petition.eu/ On 17 January 2007 an online petition was launched by a consortium of publicly-funded organisations in Europe, viz. DEFF, DFG, JISC, SPARC Europe and SURF. The petition called for the European Commission to endorse in full the recommendations in the EU Study on the Economic & Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication markets of Europe. The petition will be handed over to the European Commissioner for Research, Mr Jan Potocnik by Dr Sijbolt Noorda of the European Universities Association, a body that represents 780 universities in Europe, on 15 February 2007. About 18,500 people (including 749 institutions) have signed the petition (as on 11 February 2007). These include nine national academies, eight university associations (rectors’ conferences), nine government departments, six research-based museums, 120 universities and research institutes, 17 research funders, 43 learned publishing organisations, 91 R&D-based companies, 61 national societies or foundations, 52 international societies or foundations, 34 research library organisations, and 183 research libraries. Many institutions and individuals outside Europe have also signed the petition to EC in favour of mandating open access to research papers. Among them is Professor Atta-ur-Rahman, the well-known organic chemist and Minister for Science of Pakistan. Leaders of Indian science, directors and scientists of national laboratories (CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DAE, DRDO, Department of Space, DBT, etc.), vice chancellors, deans, professors and research scholars of Indian universities, Presidents and Fellows of Academies, and librarians would do well to sign the petition. It takes about a minute . Please visit: http://www.ec-petition.eu/. Regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ___________________________________________________________ New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk