The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has joined major international associations in support of immediate open access to research. SPARC, along with five international partner organisations, recently released a statement underscoring the importance of immediate, free access to the research of research.
As organisations committed to the principle that access to information advances discovery, accelerates innovation and improves education, these international associations endorse the policies and practices that enable Open Access - immediate, barrier free access to and reuse of scholarly articles.
Policies that promote Open Access are increasingly being adopted worldwide by research funders, academic institutions and national governments in order to improve the use and value of scholarly research. The associations fully support such policies and the dual avenues for implementing them: open access repositories and open access journals. These policies play an important role in creating an environment where collective investments in research can be maximised for the benefit of the public, and for society at large.
Many policies have employed the use of embargo periods - delayed access to research articles for a short period of time to help protect publishers' subscription revenue as they shift to new business models. These organisations consider the use of embargo periods as an acceptable transitional mechanism to help facilitate a wholesale shift towards Open Access. However, embargo periods dilute the benefits of open access policies and we believe that, if they are adopted, they should be no more than 6 months for the life and physical sciences, 12 months for social sciences and humanities. The organisations further believe that mechanisms for reducing - or eliminating - embargo periods should be included in any Open Access policy.
According to the statement, any delay in the open availability of research articles curtails scientific progress and stifles innovation, and places unnecessary constraints in delivering the benefits of research back to the public.
Signatories to the statement included: Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL), Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER); National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe (OpenAIRE); and Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC).
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