Source: EURLEX
Language: en
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# 52012DC0401

**COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Towards better access to scientific information: Boosting the benefits of public investments in research /\* COM/2012/0401 final \*/**

  

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

Towards better access to scientific
information:
Boosting the benefits of public investments in research

1.           Introduction

The
Europe 2020 strategy for a smart,
sustainable and inclusive economy underlines the central role of knowledge and
innovation in generating growth. Research results, including both publications
and data collections, need to be circulated rapidly and widely, using digital
media. This accelerates scientific discovery, enables new forms of
data-intensive research and allows research findings to be systematically taken
up by European business and industry. To spur scientific and technological
progress, the European Union (EU) should review its policies and practices on
disseminating scientific information, and take the necessary steps to improve
access to the results of publicly-funded scientific research.

Example: Mapping
the human genome will enable scientists to make progress in tackling serious
diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that government
investments of $3.8 billion in the Human Genome Project, a US co-ordinated
research endeavour including major European contributions, have had an economic
impact worth $796 billion, created 310 000 jobs and launched the genome
revolution. This is an excellent illustration of the power that open access to
scientific information can have.

This
Communication sets out the action that the Commission
intends to take to improve access to scientific information and to boost the
benefits of public investment in research. It also explains how open access
policies will be implemented under ‘Horizon 2020’, the EU’s Framework Programme for Research and
Innovation (2014-2020). The Communication is accompanied by a Recommendation to
the Member States, calling for improved policies and practices on access and
preservation in the Member States.

This initiative springs from two mutually-reinforcing
policy strands. One is the Digital Agenda for Europe[1], which sets out an ‘open data’
policy covering the full range of information that
public bodies across the European Union produce, collect or pay for[2]. The
other is the Innovation Union Communication[3],
which outlines the EU’s research and innovation policies and programmes.

The proposed measures build on earlier
work, in particular the 2007 Communication on scientific information in the
digital age[4] and the related Council Conclusions, the 2009 Communication on ICT
infrastructures for e-Science[5]
and the strategic policy developed for the European Research Area (ERA).

To improve access to scientific
information, Member States, research funding bodies, researchers, scientific
publishers, universities and their libraries, innovative industries, and
society at large need to work together. Europe’s scientific information system must be made fit for the digital age
so that the ‘fifth freedom’ of the EU — the free circulation of knowledge[6] — can become a reality.

2.           Why does better access to scientific
information matter for Europe?

Modern research builds on extensive
scientific dialogue and advances by improving earlier work. Fuller and wider
access to scientific publications and data will therefore help to:

–
accelerate innovation (faster to market = faster
growth);

–
foster collaboration and avoid duplication of
effort (greater efficiency);

–
build on previous research results (improved
quality of results);

–
involve citizens and society (improved transparency
of the scientific process).

What is at stake is the speed of scientific
progress and the return on R&D investment, and in particular
publicly-funded investment which has enormous potential
for boosting productivity,
competitiveness and growth. Wide, affordable and easy
access to scientific information is particularly important for innovative small
businesses (Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs). A recent report[7] illustrates the difficulties that Danish SMEs face in accessing scientific information. The report indicates
that, without speedy access to up-to-date scientific research results, it takes
such firms on average 2.2 years longer to develop or introduce new products. Improving access to scientific information is also about increasing
openness and transparency, which are essential features of responsible research
and innovation[8],
and it contributes to better policy-making in a variety of areas. Improved
access will lead to more science-literate citizens capable of thriving in the
complexities of the 21st century.

Discussions
of the scientific dissemination system have traditionally focused on access to
scientific publications — journals and monographs. However, it is becoming
increasingly important to improve access to research data (experimental results, observations and computer-generated
information) which form the basis for the quantitative analysis underpinning
many scientific publications.[9]

3.           The Commission’s vision

The European Commission emphasises open
access as a key tool to bring together people and ideas in a way that catalyses
science and innovation. To ensure economic growth and
to address the societal challenges of the 21st century, it is essential to optimise the circulation and transfer
of scientific knowledge among key stakeholders in
European research —universities, funding bodies,
libraries, innovative enterprises, governments and policy-makers,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and society at large.

The vision underlying the Commission’s
strategy on open data and knowledge circulation is that information already
paid for by the public purse should not be paid for again each time it is
accessed or used, and that it should benefit European companies and citizens to
the full. This means making publicly-funded scientific
information available online, at no extra cost, to European researchers and
citizens via sustainable e-infrastructures, also ensuring long-term access to
avoid losing scientific information of unique value[10].

Science is changing profoundly.
Computerised methods and machine applications will play a major role in
data-driven science. The Commission envisions a future in which the data
infrastructure becomes invisible and the information itself is an
infrastructure from the user’s perspective.

This vision in no way implies that
researchers would be prevented from patenting their inventions[11] or that the protection of
intellectual property rights in the EU would suffer.

Realising this vision calls for an
innovative European scientific publishing sector that creates new areas of
added-value beyond its traditional strengths, and builds on the new
opportunities of the digital era.

4.           Where do we stand?

4.1.        Access to scientific
publications

Scientific publications are crucial for
scientific dialogue and play a key role in the careers of scientists.

Scientific publishing is also a profitable
business, notably in Europe. European publishers account for almost 50 %
of the articles published worldwide in the scientific, technical and medical
fields. They have rapidly adapted to the digital age, using new tools to speed
up the production and dissemination process, improving the searchability of
content and deploying applications building on the underlying raw text and
data.

Rising journal prices — library budgets
under pressure

Over the last two decades, the subscription
price of scientific journals (paper-based and electronic) has increased at a
steady pace of around 3.5 % above inflation per year[12]. This increase can partly be
explained by the increased number of scientific articles published. Rising
prices put a strain on university library budgets and research institutions,
which constitute the bulk of subscribers to scientific journals.

Open
access

Given rising journal prices, there have
been calls in the scientific community to move towards open access, a model
which provides access, use and re-use free of cost to readers on the Internet.
Two basic models exist:

‘Gold’ open access (open access publishing): payment of publication costs is shifted
from readers (via subscriptions) to authors. These costs are usually borne by
the university or research institute to which the researcher is affiliated, or
by the funding agency supporting the research.

‘Green’ open access (self-archiving): the published article
or the final peer-reviewed manuscript is archived by the researcher in an
online repository before, after or alongside its publication. Access to this
article is often delayed (‘embargo period’) at the request of the publisher so
that subscribers retain an added benefit.[13]

A growing number of research funding bodies
and universities around the world require researchers to provide open access to
publicly-funded research results.[14]
Many publishers have reacted to institutional mandates by allowing the
self-archiving of manuscripts accepted for publication.[15] Currently some 20 % of
all scientific articles are available in open access form, 60 % of which
follow the ‘Green’ model.[16]
Some publishers offer ‘hybrid
journals’ that contain not only articles for which the author has paid a
publication fee (and which the reader can therefore access for free) but also
articles that are available only to subscribers or on a pay-per-view basis.

Open access policies do not affect the
author’s freedom to choose
whether to publish or not. Nor do they interfere with patenting or other forms
of commercial exploitation. The decision regarding whether to patent and
commercially exploit research results is typically taken before publication.
Open access to journal articles comes into play only if and when a researcher
decides to publish.

4.2.        Access to research data

Until now, scientific research results have
been disseminated essentially by publishing articles. There is no
well-established practice of publishing the underlying data. Research
undertaken by the PARSE-Insight[17] project showed that only 25 %
of researchers share their research data openly, 11 % make it available
for researchers within their research discipline and 58 % make it
available only within their specific research group.

As a result, many of the publicly-funded
research results that exist in the form of data are not made widely available
for others to verify or build upon, and this makes research investment highly
inefficient.

Some research funding bodies have therefore
started requiring that researchers deposit research data in suitable data
infrastructures, but this practice is not yet widely followed.

When making research data available, European and national data
protection rules must be taken into account, as well as concerns regarding
trade secrets or national security.

4.3.        Preservation of scientific
information

There are considerable economic and social
benefits to be gained from the long-term preservation of information, knowledge
and know-how for use by future generations. The UK
research funding organisation JISC carried out a cost/benefit analysis of the
preservation of research data. It found that preservation efforts lead to a
four-fold return in terms of cost saving alone[18].

Member States are currently amending their
legislation on the depositing of digital material.[19]

Special attention must also be given to
preserving scientific software and models in order to keep information
re-usable and re-producible. Open standards, formats and open source software
solutions can help ensure this.

4.4.        The international context

The move towards open access is a worldwide
trend. Currently there are more than 200 academic
institutions or research funding organisations mandating open access for
publications across the world.[20]
The European Federation of National Academies of Sciences and Humanities
recently adopted a declaration on ‘Open Science in the 21st century’, calling for “an open sharing of research
results and tools”.[21] The accessibility of research data is also being discussed in
several international fora, including the OECD and UNESCO.[22]

5.           What are the barriers to change?

The Internet has great potential for
improving access to scientific information, but this potential is not yet being
fully exploited.

A key issue affecting access to and preservation
of scientific information is the level of investment in the scientific
dissemination system. The economic and societal potential of better access to
scientific information will not be realised if budgets for accessing and
preserving information are insufficient.

Another problem is that action by the
different Member States is uneven and, with some exceptions, uncoordinated.
Concerted efforts, building on the definition and exchange of good practices,
could lead to economies of scale and efficiency gains.

5.1.        Barriers hindering the
transition to open access to scientific publications

It is perceived that moving too fast
towards open access may destabilise the scientific publishing sector and thus
the scientific information system. A shift towards open access must take into
account that the process of selecting, reviewing and publishing articles has a
cost. This can be done by providing funds for open access publishing (‘Gold’
open access) and by ensuring that researchers who self-archive (‘Green’ open access) meet funders’
requirements even when agreeing to embargo periods during which the publishers
can generate revenue through subscriptions.

The transition towards open access must be
coordinated and transparent. In the case of the ‘Gold’ model, any increased
expenditure must be accompanied by a proportional decrease in subscription
costs. Mechanisms also need to be developed to curb ‘Gold’ open access fees in
the medium and long term. Some universities[23]
and research funding organisations[24]
are currently experimenting with such issues.

As regards the ‘Green’ model, some
researchers may fail to consider complying with open access mandates via
self-archiving because they lack the necessary information or infrastructure.
They may also fear contractual disagreements with publishers.[25] Furthermore, policies
mandating open access are often not sufficiently enforced.[26]

5.2.        Barriers hindering access
to, use and re-use of research data

The lack of organisation and clarity about
responsibilities in improving access to and use of scientific data are major
barriers to change. E-infrastructures and thematic data infrastructures for
storing and providing access to data are now rapidly emerging worldwide, but
the financing models to ensure long-term access are often lacking. In addition,
interoperability among countries and disciplines remains an issue.

Many researchers and innovative enterprises
are reluctant to share what they perceive to be ‘their’ data and are concerned
that others will unfairly benefit from their efforts. Researchers, moreover,
may not want to invest time in the practicalities of depositing their data.[27] Systematic reward and
recognition mechanisms for data sharing, such as citation mechanisms and
measurements of the data citation impact, are not yet in place.[28]

5.3.        Barriers to long-term
preservation

The lack of financial and organisational
models is a major problem in this area. Often preservation support structures
are created for specific projects, limiting funding to a certain period.
Funding is short-lived, fragmented and does not provide long-term solutions.

The technical challenges of preserving
large volumes of data remain unsolved, in particular in fields such as
astronomy and earth sciences that study constantly changing conditions.

National rules and practices for
legally-required data depositing are now being adapted to include digital
material, but exactly what material is covered and how, differs from one EU
Member State to another. The 2011 Commission Recommendation on digitisation and
digital preservation[29]
points to specific areas to be addressed.

6.           Action at European level

6.1.        What has the Commission
done so far?

6.1.1.     Developing policy

If Europe is to reap the benefits of wider
access to scientific research results, clear policies are needed — both
national and European. The 2007 Council Conclusions on scientific information
in the digital age set out a range of Member State measures with target dates,
but progress has been uneven[30].
An updated set of actions to improve access to and preservation of scientific
information should therefore be recommended to the Member States.

6.1.2.     Implementing open access in
Community research funding

As a major research funding body, the
Commission has led by example by imposing certain conditions on the beneficiaries
of its research grants. Following its 2007 Communication on scientific
information in the digital age the Commission set up a pilot scheme for open
access to publications resulting from projects under the Seventh Framework
Programme (FP7).[31]
Launched in 2008, this scheme covers 20 % of the FP7 budget and spans
several thematic areas. Grant recipients are required to self-archive and to
make their best effort to ensure open access to articles within six or twelve
months after publication, depending on the research area. This requirement
relates to articles, but not to underlying data.[32]

A May 2011 survey[33] of projects covered by the
pilot scheme showed that most respondents found self-archiving easy or very
easy in terms of manpower and time. Three quarters of the respondents
expressing an opinion agreed or strongly agreed with an open access mandate for
data in their research area, provided that all relevant aspects (e.g. ethics,
confidentiality, intellectual property) are considered and addressed.

6.1.3.     Ensuring EU-wide
interoperability

In recent years, the Commission has
supported the development of e-infrastructures for science, including
scientific data infrastructures, measures to make national infrastructures more
interoperable, and the preparatory phases for the setting up of
sustainable European thematic data infrastructures identified in the ESFRI[34]
Roadmap. Since the beginning of FP7 the Commission has
committed over € 150 million to infrastructure initiatives. A central
project in this context is OpenAIRE[35],
an e-infrastructure to deposit and access peer-reviewed articles and datasets
resulting from EU-funded projects.

6.2.        What are the next steps?

6.2.1.     Working with the Member
States

In parallel with this Communication, the
Commission has adopted a Recommendation to the Member States on access to and
preservation of scientific information. The Commission will work with national
points of reference, designated by each Member State, to draw up common
principles and standards.

6.2.2.     Leading by example: Open
access in Horizon 2020

In Horizon 2020, both the ‘Green’ and
‘Gold’ models are considered valid approaches to achieve open access. All
projects will be requested to immediately deposit an electronic version of
their publications (final version or peer-reviewed manuscript) into an archive
in a machine-readable format. This can be done using the ‘Gold’ model (open
access to published version is immediate), or the ‘Green’ model. In this case,
the Commission will allow an embargo period of a maximum of six months, except
for the social sciences and humanities where the maximum will be twelve months
(due to publications’ longer ‘half-life’)[36].

The eligibility of ‘Gold’ open access
publishing costs will be maintained in Horizon 2020. The Commission will also
consider whether and under what conditions open access publication fees can be
reimbursed after the end of the grant agreement.

The Commission encourages authors to retain
their copyright and to grant licences to publishers, according to the rules
applying in Member States.

In addition, the Commission will to set up
a pilot scheme on open access to and re-use of research data generated by
projects in selected areas of Horizon 2020. The
Commission will also encourage, where appropriate, the publication of software
codes used to produce or process the data. In designing
and implementing the pilot the Commission will take into account possible
constraints on making research data openly accessible which may pertain to privacy, national security or data, and know-how
and knowledge brought into projects as inputs. Generally, the pilot scheme will
not apply to projects whose primary aim would be contradicted by making
research data accessible.

Online access to scientific information
resulting from EU-funded projects will be further improved, building on the
OpenAIRE infrastructure and its National Open Access Desks.

Guidance will be given to researchers and
academic institutions on how to comply with the requirement to provide open
access.

As set out in the Open Data Communication,
the Commission will start operating an e-infrastructure that will make the
Commission’s own publications and research data as well as those of other
European institutions and agencies easily accessible and usable. In parallel, metadata
definitions with high re-use potential will be identified and promoted.

6.2.3.     Working with the
stakeholder community

The
European Commission will continue its dialogue with and monitor the impact of
its open access policies on all stakeholder groups interested in open access to
publications and data as well as digital preservation. These stakeholders
include academic institutions, research centres and
their libraries, scientific publishers, enterprises including SMEs,
researchers, policy-makers and governments, citizens’ organisations, and NGOs.

6.2.4.     Funding infrastructures and
relevant projects for responsible research and innovation

The European Commission will continue to
fund projects related to open access. In 2012-2013, the Commission will spend € 45
million on data infrastructures[37]
and research on digital preservation. Funding will
continue under the Horizon 2020 programme.[38]

During the same period, the Commission will
support experimentation with new ways of handling scientific information (e.g.
new peer-review methods and ways of measuring article impact).

6.2.5.     Coordination beyond the EU

Beyond the EU, the Commission will continue
working with its international partners and scientific communities to promote
open access. EU action on open access can inspire third countries and third
country stakeholders to develop their own policies. A specific area in which EC
policy will benefit the global scientific community is interoperability and
sustainability of data infrastructures.[39]

7.           Conclusion

Wide, fair, sustainable and easy access to
publicly-funded scientific information and its sustainable preservation for
re-use can make a significant contribution to Europe’s economic growth and help
it address the societal challenges of the 21st century.

In this Communication, the Commission sets
out measures to ensure that the results of Europe’s publicly-funded research
are fully accessible for researchers, businesses and citizens. Some of these
measures need to be implemented by Member States, while others will be carried
out by the Commission.

The Commission invites the European
Parliament and the Council to show their support for the objective of open
access to scientific information by playing their part in adopting the
necessary policies and in supporting the planned projects and infrastructures.

Access to and preservation of scientific information: key measures

Policy measures

–
Recommendation to the Member States on access to
and preservation of scientific information, 2012.

–
Work with national points of reference
designated by Member States to draw up common principles and standards, from
2013.

–
Work with national points of reference to
structure and monitor progress on access and dissemination, from 2013.

Open access to results of EU-funded
research

–
Establish open access to scientific publications
as a general principle in the Horizon 2020 programme and set up the conditions
for optimal compliance, from 2014.

–
Maintain the possibility of reimbursing open
access publishing fees as part of the Horizon 2020 programme, from 2014.

–
Provide a framework and encourage open access to
research data in Horizon 2020, taking into account any
restrictions that may be needed in order to protect intellectual property or
legitimate commercial interests, from 2014.

Funding for infrastructures and projects

–
Continue funding relevant projects in Horizon
2020, from 2014.

–
Provide €45 million for
infrastructures supporting open access to research articles and data, and for
research on digital preservation, 2012-2013.

Coordination beyond the EU

–
Promote open access policies and the
interoperability of data infrastructures with international partners.

Targets:

–
By 2014, policies for open access to scientific
articles and data will have been established in all Member States at all
relevant levels.

–
By 2016, the share of publicly-funded scientific
articles available under open access EU-wide will have increased from 20 %
to 60 %.

–
100 % of scientific publications resulting
from Horizon 2020 will be available under open access.

[1]               COM(2010)
245 final/2.

[2]               See
‘open data’ package adopted on 12 December 2011, COM(2011) 882.

[3]               COM(2010) 546
final.

[4]               COM(2007)
56 final.

[5]               COM(2009)
108 final.

[6]               Conclusions
of the European Council of 20 May 2008, Doc. no. 7652/1/08.

[7]               http://www.fi.dk/publikationer/2011/adgang-til-forskningsresultater-og-teknisk-information-i-danmark.

[8]               See
Sutcliffe, ‘A report on Responsible Research and Innovation’.

[9]               See
‘Riding the Wave: How Europe can gain from the rising tide of scientific data’,
High Level Expert Group on Scientific Data, October 2010.

[10]             Communication
of the Commission ‘ICT infrastructures for e-Science’ of 5.3.2009, COM(2009)
108 final.

[11]             Patenting
is an effective way of disseminating knowledge in open access mode.

[12]             http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/arlstat09.pdf.

[13]             This
model allows for certain variations. The length of the embargo period and the
version that may be archived at different moments in time vary, e.g. depending
on the agreements between publishers and authors. Online repositories are
managed either by academic institutions or funding bodies, or organised so as
to cover specific subjects.

[14]             See
the ROARMAP register: http://roarmap.eprints.org/.

[15]             Some
57 % of publishers’ default policies allow self-archiving of the accepted
manuscript, see http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.

[16]             Björk
et al., Open Access to Scientific Journal Literature: Situation 2009, available
on www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0011273.

[17]             ‘Permanent
access to the records of science’ project, co-funded by the EU under FP7, www.parse-insight.eu.

[18]             http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/279/2/JISC\_data\_sharing\_finalreport.pdf.

[19]             Commission
staff working paper accompanying the Communication of the Commission on the
digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation,
SEC(2011) 1274 final.

[20]             http://roarmap.eprints.org/.

[21]             http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/e-infrastructure/docs/allea\_declaration.pdf.

[22]             http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/61/38500813.pdf.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002158/215863e.pdf.

[23]             See
the COPE fund, http://www.oacompact.org/.

[24]             See
the ‘Sponsoring consortium for open access publishing in particle physics’,
www.scoap3.org.

[25]             See
the report ‘PEER Behavioural Research: Authors and Users vis-à-vis Journals and
Repositories, final report’, p. 51 et seq., available on: www.peerproject.eu.

[26]             See
the PEER report, precit., at p. VI.

[27]             Report
‘To share or not to share: Publication and Quality Assurance of Research Data
Outputs’, available on: http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk.

[28]             There
are some initiatives emerging such as datacite.org.

[29]             Recommendation
of 27.10.2011, C(2011) 7579 final.

[30]             See
the report ‘National Open Access and Preservation policies in Europe, 2011,
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document\_library/pdf\_06/open-access-report-2011\_en.pdf.

[31]             Open
Access Pilot in FP7; http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.topic&id=1300&lang=1
.

[32]             However,
the European Research Council (ERC) considers it essential that data underlying
peer-reviewed publications are deposited immediately after publication and in
any case not later than 6 months after the date of publication (ERC Scientific
Council Statement on Open Access).

[33]             Survey
on open access in FP7;
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document\_library/pdf\_06/survey-on-open-access-in-fp7\_en.pdf

[34]             European
Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures
(http://ec.europa.eu/research/infrastructures/index\_en.cfm?pg=esfri)

[35]             Funded
by FP7, http://www.openaire.eu/.

[36]             The maximum embargo periods will be laid down in the
model grant agreement for Horizon 2020. The Commission will monitor and
evaluate their implementation as part of the overall open access policy and
review them in case of specific problems, in particular with regard to the
social sciences and humanities.

[37]             These infrastructures are publicly funded and provided
for non-economic activities such as pure dissemination of knowledge.

[38]             See
EC proposal for Horizon 2020 Specific programme (COM(2011)811 final). This is
subject to the adoption of the Horizon 2020 legal basis and without prejudice
of the final decision on the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020.

[39]             See
also the forthcoming Communication ‘Enhancing and focussing European
international cooperation in research and innovation: A strategic approach’.

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