Science Europe Denounces ‘Hybrid’ Open Access

Ross Mounce | Open Knowledge Foundation Blog | May 2, 2013

Recently Science Europe published a clear and concise position statement titled: Principles on the Transition to Open Access to Research Publications

This is an extremely timely & important document that clarifies what governments and research funders should expect during the transition to open access. Unlike the recent US OSTP public access policy which allows publishers to apply up to a 12 month access embargo (to the disgust of some scientists like Michael Eisen) on publicly-funded research, this new Science Europe statement makes clear that only up to a 6 month embargo at maximum should be accepted for publicly funded STEM research. The recent RCUK (UK research councils) open access policy also requires 6 months embargo at most, with some caveats.