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US scientists back bill for free access to publicly funded science research

Janice Hopkins Tanne New York

A star studded group of US doctors and scientists is supporting legislation for publicly funded research to be made available free by "open access" on the internet, an initiative spearheaded by the Public Library of Science, a non-profit organisation ( www.plos.org ).

Martin Sabo, a Democrat from the US state of Minnesota, has introduced legislation to the House of Representatives to prevent publicly funded researchers gaining copyright protection for their papers. Instead, under the proposed Public Access to Science Act, reports of research largely funded by taxpayers would be in the public domain.

Mr Sabo told the New York Times that he would seek joint sponsors for his bill, which has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee. So far, no companion bill has been introduced in the Senate.

The Public Library of Science is using prime time television advertisements in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington, and posters at scientific institutions to urge leading scientists to publish in the site’s first two journals—PLoS Biology (to be launched in October) and a medical journal next year.

The library’s founders are Nobel prize winner Dr Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health and currently president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York; Dr Patrick Brown of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Stanford University; and Dr Michael Eisen of Lawrence Orlando Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley. Nobel prize winner James Watson, who was one of the discoverers of the DNA double helix, also supports the library.

The library is funded by a $9m (£5.4; €7.8m) grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Most research in the United States—an estimated $50bn—is funded in whole or in part by taxpayers. However, researchers usually try to publish their results in distinguished peer reviewed journals such as Nature, Cell, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers must transfer copyright in their papers to the journals, and the journals charge subscribers.

A subscription to Nature costs $159 for an individual and $920 for an institution in the United States. Subscriptions to other journals are much higher. Brain Research, published by Reed Elsevier, can cost institutions $19971 a year.

Dr Varmus told the Wall Street Journal that the current situation disenfranchises the public and scientists at poorer institutions. Scientists in developing countries also have difficulty keeping up with the latest research.

When he was at the National Institutes of Health, Dr Varmus started PubMed Central ( www.pubmedcentral.org ), an open access source, but few journals joined, even though there was a delay between print publication and internet access. Most journals never release their content, although some permit access after six months or a year.

The Public Library of Science will charge authors $1500, often covered by their grants, but will waive charges for poor authors and institutions. Papers will be peer reviewed. The library’s journals will be free on line and available in print at cost.