European Union ministers have reportedly adopted a plan to make it easier for public to access scientific research and to help spread innovation more quickly across the 27-nation bloc. Four joint technology initiatives to carry out research in nano-electronic technologies, aeronautics, medicines and computing systems have also been approved. These initiatives are slated for launch in 2008.
It is expected that the plan will raise concern among scientific publishers, who fear losing revenue if research is made available for free on the Internet. The plan is, however, being welcomed by researchers, librarians and funding bodies. European researchers publish nearly 43 percent of the world's research.
EU nations will look at the way researchers exercise their copyright on scientific articles and how much it costs to disseminate research. Also, they will examine tools such as refunding value added tax to libraries which take out digital journal subscriptions, and how to link national repositories of science data.
EU ministers also encouraged efforts to extend research into nanotechnologies.
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