Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 10:15:45 +0530 From: Subbiah Arunachalam More on the FRS letter to the Royal Society Donald MacLeod, Royal Society attacked for 'negative' open access stance, The Guardian, December 7, 2005. A group of 46 distinguished scientists, including Nobel laureate James Watson, today strongly criticised the Royal Society, the UK's national academy of science, for its "negative" attitude to new online methods of publishing research. The row has erupted over so-called "open access" agreements, under which scientists agree to make their findings freely available on the internet as well as, or instead of, publishing them in academic journals. This is being strongly promoted by the UK's research councils, as well as bodies like the Wellcome Trust, as the most efficient way of disseminating scientific results from the research they fund but has been bitterly opposed by publishers and learned societies which produce their own journals. Last month the Royal Society, founded in 1660, called for caution in what it called "the biggest change in the way that knowledge is exchanged since the invention of the peer-reviewed scientific journal 340 years ago". The society warned that "the exchange of knowledge could be severely disrupted, and researchers and wider society will suffer the resulting consequences." This statement sparked a flurry of heated online exchanges between scientists around the world, including the elite membership of the Royal Society, and today culminated in an open letter signed by 46 of its fellows expressing disappointment with the society's attempt to delay implementation of the research councils' policy and accusing the society of putting its own interests above those of science. The signatories, including James Watson who discovered the structure of DNA, and Sir John Sulston, who headed the British end of the human genome project, state: "As working scientists who support open access to published research, we believe that the society should support Research Councils UK's (RCUK) proposal, rather than oppose it. "The proposed RCUK policy will ensure that the results of research funded by the research councils are made freely and rapidly available, maximising their utility not only to the scholarly community in the United Kingdom and around the world, but also to practitioners (including doctors and nurses) and to the British public whose taxes largely support the research. "In seeking to delay or even to block the proposed RCUK policy, the Royal Society appears to be putting the concerns of existing publishers (including the society itself) ahead of the needs of science. The position statement ignores considerable evidence demonstrating the viability of open access, instead warning ominously of 'disastrous' consequences for science publishing. We believe that these concerns are mistaken."