Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2005 11:13:54 +0100 (BST) From: Subbiah Arunachalam <subbiah_a@yahoo.com> To: dgcsir@hq.csir.res.in Dear Dr Mashelkar: Here is some good news from onr of the largest funders of biomedical research in the world. CSIR and other government agencies in India funding and supporting S&T research may do well to adopt a similar policy -- all papers resulting from public funding must be made available via open access archives (or published in 100% open access journals). Early this week I attended a three-day workshop on networking for higher education and research in Africa held at CERN. It was a very fruitful meeting where stakeholders from Africa and Europe came together and discussed all related issues. Mr Ponraj from Rashtrapathi Bhavan was there and in his talk he told about how India is helping Africa in its own way. Africans are really looking forward to working closely with India and learning from our experience. I also attended a few sessions at the WSIS PrepCom-3 and several institutions and groups are interested in promoting open access to scientific literature through the WSIS process. I think the time is ripe for India to (1) go ahead and adopt open access in a big way, and (2) to provide support to Africa in going ahead with open access. Africa is looking for low cost equipment (PCs, routers, etc) and low-cost connectivity and Internet access. These are areas India is reasonably well-placed to help. And the forthcoming WSIS meet at Tunis is a great opportunity to make an announcement. We could also depute a team from IISc, Bangalore (NCSI), to conduct a series of workshops on setting up OA archives in Africa. I will be grateful if you could lead India's efforts in this area. Regards. Arun (Subbiah Arunachalam) ------- Wellcome Trust OA mandate starts tomorrow Open Access a Must for Wellcome Trust Researchers, a Wellcome Trust press release, undated but released today. Excerpt: Next week (October) the Wellcome Trust becomes the first scientific research funder to insist that papers emanating from its grant awards are placed in an open access repository. From the 1st October it will become a condition of funding, that papers will have to be posted on PubMed Central (PMC)– the free-to access, life sciences archive developed by the National Institutes of Health – and made accessible within 6 months of publication. To facilitate this, the Wellcome Trust has – with the help of NIH – established a manuscript submission system, through which papers accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal can be deposited in PMC. From the 1st October next year all existing Trust grant holders will have to deposit future papers into PubMed Central. This delay will allow existing grant holders time to adjust to the new policy and let us know what problems – if any – they may experience, affording us time to overcome them. During this time the Trust, working in partnership with other UK life sciences funders, plans to establish a UK version of PubMed Central – UKPMC. Wellcome-funded researchers should submit their papers to PMC via the NIH manuscript submission system and consult the Wellcome page of manuscript submission information. ___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com