Moving Forwards on Open Access: LERU statement for the EU Presidency

Nowadays, European universities pay publishers significant parts of their university budget. As Harvard University already denounced in 2012, many large journal publishers have rendered the situation “fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive”, with some journals costing as much as $40,000 per year. It is easy to picture the struggle of European universities with tighter budgets. In addition to subscription costs, academic research funding is also largely affected by “Article Processing Charges” (APC), which come at an additional cost of €2000/article, on average, when making individual articles Gold Open . Prof Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary-General LERU calls upon the European Commission and the forthcoming Dutch EU Presidency " to work with all stakeholders and bodies involved, to bring sensible solutions to the fore." In the era of Open Science, Open Access to publications is one of the cornerstones of the new research paradigm and business models must support this transition. It should be one of the principal objectives of Commissioner Carlos Moedas and the Dutch EU Presidency (January-June 2016) to ensure that this transition happens. Further developing the EU´s leadership in research and innovation largely depends on it. With this statement "Moving Forwards on Open Access", LERU calls upon all universities, research institutes, research funders and researchers to sign this statement and give a clear signal towards the European Commission and the Dutch EU Presidency. 8,800 people and organisations already signed up to the LERU statement.