Pertinent Prior AmSci Topic Threads:
"Lord Sainsbury on the RCUK OA Proposal: Drubbing Peter to Pox Paul
(began: Nov 2004)
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4131.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/subject.html#4152
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4319.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4348.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4907.html
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/4908.html
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The following is from Peter Suber's Open Access News, 12 Nov 2006:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_11_12_fosblogarchive.html#116335233844648919
OBSTACLE TO STRONG OA POLICY IN THE UK STEPS DOWN
On Friday, Lord David Sainsbury stepped down from his position as
UK science minister. However we may hear from him on UK science
policy one more time before he leaves the public stage:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/funding/story/0,,1945280,00.html
http://www.dti.gov.uk/pressroom/news/page35238.html
Lord Sainsbury has agreed to carry out a review of science and
innovation policies across government - taking a forward look at
what needs to be done to ensure the UK's success in wealth creation
and scientific policy-making. He will report to the Chancellor and
the Secretaries of State at DTI and the Department for Education
and Skills.
Sainsbury has been the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Science and Innovation in the Department of Trade and Industry since
July 1998. (Thanks to Matt Cockerill.)
More news coverage.
http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-42,GGLJ:en&q=sainsbury&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn
Comments.
1. David Sainsbury is the UK official most responsible for rejecting
the OA recommendations (July 2004) of the House of Commons Science
and Technology Committee.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/39903.htm
Those recommendations were based on
extensive fact-finding and in their basic terms have been reaffirmed
and adopted by just about every other government since then that has
closely examined the same issues.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399ii.pdf
2. Thanks to a document unearthed by David Prosser through the
UK Freedom of Information Act, we know that during the time when
Sainsbury was supposed to be evaluating the OA recommendations, he
met with OA opponents roughly twice as often as with OA proponents,
and met with the Reed Elsevier CEO three times more often than any
other stakeholder.
https://mx2.arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/2612.html
3. As a result of Sainsbury's partiality, strong OA policy in the
UK was delayed by about two years --the time between the House of
Commons recommendations (July 2004) and the adoption of the RCUK
policy (June 2006). And for the record, we should note that the RCUK
could adopt its strong OA policy only because it was independent
of Sainsbury's authority, as Sainsbury himself noted in March 2005
testimony before the Science and Technology Committee (scroll to
Questions 20 and following).
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmsctech/uc250-i/uc25002.htm
http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/access/2006statement.pdf
Permanent link to Peter Suber's OA News post:
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2006_11_12_fosblogarchive.html#116335233844648919
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Perhaps a grocer was not the best equipped to appreciate the difference
between research and retail...
Bravo to 5 of the 8 UK Research Councils for honouring the difference
just the same! Let's hope the US will have the good sense to do
likewise with the FRPAA, and Europe, with EC Recommendation A1.
http://cornyn.senate.gov/doc_archive/05-02-2006_COE06461_xml.pdf
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf
Stevan Harnad
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