Please consider supporting the following e-petition, on the UK
government petition website at:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16041
The text of the petition reads:
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Most of the research in UK universities and colleges is funded by the
taxpayer through the government. However, the knowledge generated by
this is often controlled by publishers who charge significant amounts
of money, often hundreds or thousands of pounds per individual
journal, for access.
These charges put severe pressure on university funding, which mostly
comes from (again) the taxpayer and student fees. Research suffers as
academics lose access, on cost grounds, to research in their field.
Members of the public cannot afford access to knowledge they have
indirectly funded.
Despite many initiatives to make this taxpayer-funded knowledge openly
accessible, most of it is still “locked” away in high cost publications.
Publications and knowledge generated by research funded through the
government, unless genuinely sensitive (e.g. military or atomic
development), should be freely available, in their entirety, within a
year. This should be a condition of research funding.
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A few links to background information can be found at:
http://is.gd/FreeKnowledge
Thank you.
John Kirriemuir
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