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Author Archives: Stephen
Rubicon
This is a big deal for me: my first ever article in New Scientist – a magazine that I read in the library in Ballymena as a teenager. Pardon me for preening a little. What’s it about? You guessed it: … Continue reading
The Finch Report on open access: it’s complicated
A committee set up by government was never going to foment a revolution. And so it has proved to be. The recommendations of the Finch Report released today mark a cautious, measured step in the right direction, but it is nevertheless … Continue reading
PeerJ – a brave new world?
For me, one of the more appealing aspects of open access publishing is that by making costs transparent it could stimulate competition between publishers and generate innovative solutions to drive down prices. Today sees the launch of one such innovation: … Continue reading
Passing By
I was determined not to miss the transit of Venus today. Life’s too short. But this week I have relocated to St Raphael in the south of France for a conference on picornaviruses and had to leave my telescope behind. Despite … Continue reading
Open Access: Money and Data talk and say the same thing?
One of these days — I promise — I will get back to writing about science. But a conjunction of tweets today brought to me three articles on open access that were interesting in different ways but curiously all seemed … Continue reading
Petitioning the President on Open Access
It has been quite a year so far for open access. And the momentum is still building. First came the Elsevier Boycott, triggered by an angry reaction to the publisher’s support for the US Research Works Act, which would have … Continue reading
A Bill to Amend the Law of Defamation
The libel reform campaign has yielded a spring crop: a bill to amend the law of defamation was introduced to parliament in the Queen’s Speech on May 10th. This means that legislation to amend the lax libel laws of England and … Continue reading
Finch Committee: Update
I reported before on the notes from earlier meetings of the Finch Committee, which was set up by Science Minister David WIlletts to formulate proposals for making publicly-funded research more accessible. The notes of their latest meeting, held on 27th … Continue reading
Manifest Sense
Mark Henderson’s The Geek Manifesto is a remarkable book. Though many of its themes are not new, it is difficult to imagine such a book being published as recently as five years ago. The Geek Manifesto provides a timely analysis … Continue reading
Access to the Finch Committee on Open Access
The Finch Committee, set up last year by David Willetts to examine how UK-funded research findings can be made more accessible — and mentioned by the minister in his speech on the subject earlier this week — has been meeting … Continue reading
Posted in Open Access, Science, Science & Politics
Tagged David Willetts, Finch Committee, open access
6 Comments
Willetts’ Speech on Open Access: Analysis
David Willetts, Britain’s minister for science and universities, trailed the announcements made in his speech on open access to the UK Publishers’ Association yesterday as a ‘seismic shift’. One learns to be wary of the more hyperbolic statements of government ministers … Continue reading
Posted in Open Access, Science, Science & Politics
Tagged David Willetts, open access, Publishers' Association
12 Comments
UK Government to lead the world to open access?
The open access buzz around the internet last week was all due to the announcement by senior faculty at Harvard that journal subscription prices were rising at an unsustainable rate and the call to colleagues to devote their publishing energies … Continue reading
Posted in Open Access, Science, Science & Politics
Tagged David Willetts, Jimmy Wales, open access
7 Comments
