[Ip-health] Canadian Health Research Agency mandates open access

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2223/159/

New Research Policy a Victory for Open Access
Monday September 10, 2007

Appeared in the Toronto Star on September 10, 2007 as New Research
Policy a Victory for "Open Access"
<http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/254701>

As millions of students headed back to school last week, Canadian health
researchers learned that change this year extends beyond the composition
of their classes.  The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the
federal government's health research granting agency, unveiled a new
open access policy for the research that it funds. The new policy - the
first of its kind for Ottawa's three major research granting
institutions that dole out hundreds of millions of dollars each year -
will revolutionize access to health research by mandating that thousands
of articles published each year be made freely available online to a
global audience.

This marks an important step in the "open access" movement in Canada,
which had been falling behind peer institutions in the United States,
Europe, and Australia.  It also places heightened pressure on the
publishing industry to adapt their policies to permit greater access to
publicly-funded research.

For years, the research model in Canada has remained relatively static.
University scientists and researchers, who rely heavily on federal
financial support, typically publish in expensive, peer-reviewed
publications, which are purchased by those same publicly-funded
universities.

Large publishers benefited from the system as they had access to a
steady stream of content with minimal investment, yet the public was
forced to pay twice for research that it was frequently unable to
access.  Patients with life threatening diseases seeking information on
new treatments or parents searching for the latest developments on child
immunizations were often denied access to the research they indirectly
fund through their tax dollars.

That will change starting in 2008.  While CIHR already makes clinical
trial data available, according to the new policy, grant recipients will
be required to make every effort to ensure that all publications are
freely accessible through the publisher's website or an online
repository within six months of publication.  The online repository
approach - often referred to as "self-archiving" - relies on smart
search engines to index millions of articles and make them easily
accessible with the right search query.

The policy will help ensure that five percent of the world's health
research scholarship - tens of thousands of articles (CIHR funds
approximately 5,000 researchers annually producing as many as 30,000
articles) - are generally freely available.  This benefits the
researchers, whose work becomes more widely read and cross-referenced,
as well as the general public.

Notwithstanding this important development, the publishing industry
remains skeptical about open access.  Last month, the Association of
American Publishers launched PRISM, a lobbying effort geared toward
convincing U.S. lawmakers that open access threatens independent
research and smacks of government censorship.  While such outlandish
claims are easily countered, the lobby has forced the scientific
community to spend more of its time justifying policies to make their
research available, rather than focusing on the research itself.

Indeed, critics have noted the publisher pressure may have led to a last
minute change in the CIHR policy.  The policy is not iron-clad since
publication in an online repository is conditional on the appropriate
permission from the publisher.  Accordingly, a researcher does not
violate the grant requirements by not posting their work if a publisher
refuses to grant them permission to do so.  This leaves publishers with
a measure of control, though a growing number of them now permit this
form of archiving.

While it is tempting to say that the policy does not go far enough in
light of this loophole, the CIHR policy is likely to place renewed
pressure on the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
(NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC),
the federal government's two other major granting councils to follow
suit.  To date, the SSHRC has only launched a small open access pilot
project after opposition from publishers such as the University of
Toronto Press short-circuited bolder plans. NSERC has proven even more
apathetic, as internal documents reveal that Council personnel admit
that open access is not a priority.

That may change as new Industry Minister Jim Prentice focuses on
Canadian economic competitiveness and fiscal responsibility.  With the
health field now leading the way, Canadians may at long last gain open
access to the world-class research they have funded, while the
publishing industry adapts to the new realities of access to research.

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce
Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at
mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.


--
Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney
judit.rius@keionline.org

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
www.keionline.org / www.cptech.org
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