Commission launches review Europe's scientific publications system
On 15 June, the Commission launched a study of the scientific publications market in Europe with the aim of 'determining the conditions required for optimum operation of the sector'. Having identified the conditions that could improve access to and the exchange of published scientific research, the study will then propose ways in which the Commission can help to achieve them. Around 20,000 scientific periodicals exist around the world, which together publish some 1.5 million articles each year. Europe leads the way as the source of 41.3 per cent of all scientific articles, compared with 31.4 per cent for the US, but Europe lags behind its main competitor in terms of references, which are seen as a better guide to the quality of research. According to Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin, 'The way in which the scientific publishing market is organised has implications. Scientific publications not only serve to disseminate research results, they also constitute a tool for evaluating the quality of research teams. 'Our objective of establishing a genuine European Research Area and our aim to raise the profile of European research mean that we have to examine the scientific publishing system,' he added. The Commission says that its study will tackle the main topics in the current public debate surrounding the publication of research. According to the traditional business model for scientific journals, researchers are not charged for the peer review and publication of their results; rather, the costs of publication are met by charging subscription fees to those institutions and individuals that wish to access the material. In recent years, however, many people have begun to argue that such a system is outdated, unnecessary and unfair, not least in the case of publicly funded research, and 'open access' to results has become a hot topic. Initiatives such as the Public Library of Science (PLoS), which in 2003 began publishing high quality research results online, free of charge and with no restrictions on access or use, have lent an added urgency to the debate. Stanford University's Dr Patrick Brown, one of the co-founders of PLoS, likens the role of scientific journals to that of a midwife - playing a key role in bringing research results into the world: 'Just as midwives can earn a living without claiming ownership or control of the babies they deliver, publishers can and should be paid a fair price by the sponsors of the research [...] for their role in orchestrating peer review, editing and disseminating the results. But they should not be given the baby - our baby - to own and control.' At PLoS, it is the researchers themselves who cover the costs of publication, or more typically the governmental or private institution that financed the research, with the current figure set at 1,500 USD (1,200 euro) per article. This then allows PLoS to make all results available online at no additional cost, which, it argues, better reflects the relatively low cost of dissemination using today's information technologies, compared with delivering paper-based journals. However, not everyone agrees that the PLoS model is the ideal one. The editor-in-chief of the journal Science, Professor Donald Kennedy, argues that in well supported areas of research such as biology (currently the main focus of PLoS), the author-pays model is plausible, but will present real challenges in less populated and well supported fields. Professor Kennedy also warns that as PLoS becomes more established, it will receive more and more submissions, placing an added strain on their business model. 'That's because it costs almost as much to reject a paper responsibly as it does to accept one. The higher the rejection rate, the larger becomes the expense budget that must be met from the fixed revenue from author fees.' Offering a news service based on scientific results for those outside of the sub-discipline, as many journals do, will generate additional costs, Professor Kennedy adds. Support for the open access model appears to be crystallising, however, and in October 2003 representatives from some of Europe's leading research institutes adopted the 'Berlin declaration on open access to knowledge in sciences and humanities'. By asking questions such as: 'what are the main changes in Europe?', 'what and who is driving change and why?', 'Is there any resistance to positive change and, if so, who is blocking it?', and 'what are the consequences for users?', the Commission hopes the survey will make an important contribution to the ongoing debate. The results of the study are expected to be made available in 2005.