Today I resigned from the editorial board of a well respected journal in my field – Genomics. No longer can I work for a system that provides solid profits for the publisher while effectively denying colleagues in developing countries access to research findings.

It has not been an easy decision. Some may feel that I'm grandstanding or making a futile gesture. And it may be a toxic career move. Scientists are expected to contribute to the community by reviewing papers and serving on editorial boards. But I cannot stand by any longer while access to scientific resources is restricted.

Among the plans the government hopes will advance its strategy are proposals to establish an Open Data Institute to "ensure that Open Data research is transformed into commercial advantage for UK companies, work with academic centres to increase the number of trained personnel with extensive Open Data skills and provide expert advice for government," BIS said.

The government will also force Research Councils to "ensure the researchers they fund" comply with an existing requirement to "deposit published articles or conference proceedings in an open access repository at or around the time of publication". Currently this is "unevenly enforced," BIS said.

The Research Councils have also committed to investing £2m to develop a 'Gateway to Research' by 2013, BIS said.

"In the first instance this will allow ready access to Research Council funded research information and related data but it will be designed so that it can also include research funded by others in due course," the report said. "The Research Councils will work with their partners and users to ensure information is presented in a readily reusable form, using common formats and open standards".

Felix Online, the online news of Imperial College in the UK, reports (in an article by Kadhim Shubber) that Deborah Shorley, Director of the Imperial College London Library, is threatening to end the library’s subscriptions to journals published by Elsevier and Wiley Blackwell, two of the major publishers in the UK. Rather than giving into the bundling of journals with 6% annual subscription prices (well above inflation, and in the face of a growth in profits at Elsevier from £1B to £1.6B from 2005 to 2009), she is demanding a 15% reduction in fees, as well as other concessions.

It'll be interesting to see how this develops. I presume that we are at the leading edge of a surge in this kind of thing. I wonder about universities' ability to hold their nerve but maybe the financial situation is now tight enough that they have no choice?

Wiley Open Access journals will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.  A publication fee will be payable by authors on acceptance of their articles.  Wiley will introduce a range of new payment schemes to enable academic and research institutions, funders, societies, and corporations to actively support their researchers and members who wish to publish in Wiley Open Access journals. 

Another adoption of a supposedly 'open' approach marred by the choice of a non-commercial licence. Shame.

BTW... at what point in the process of UK universities potentially trebling their student fees will university activity be deemed to be 'commercial'?