Bio-funders back the Open Access publishing

Survey backed by Bio-Med Central backs future of open access

Biomedical funders strongly support open access (OA) publishing, according to a survey by an OA publisher .

A poll by open access publisher BioMed Central found that 31 of the 33 funding agencies that responded to a survey of 75 international biomedical funding bodies confirmed they were willing to fund the processing charges for OA publishing.

Around half the respondents were signatories to one of the major international declarations in support of open access, and a similar number had their own official policy in support of the strategy.

BioMed Central publisher Matthew Cockerill said: “It is very encouraging to see a growing number of funders expressing official support for open access, and confirming that they will make funds available to allow authors to publish in open access journals.”

He added that he hoped the research would encourage others to develop official policies in support of OA.

But Sally Morris, secretary general of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), sounded a note of caution.

“I don’t think OA publishing, where journals make material accessible immediately, is a threat provided it’s offered as a choice to authors,” she said. “But self-archiving is potentially more worrying. If authors ignore publishers’ policies, then journals could suffer.”

Morris said ALPS P research with librarians suggested that where journal articles were offered for free online anywhere else, many would consider ending their subscription to the publications.