European Union Steps Back From Open-Access Leap.

The article reports on the ongoing quest for free access to the results of publicly funded research of which European Union (EU) research organizations had signed an online petition for the European Commission to take action on the so-called open access. There were 14,000 researchers and 500 research institutes had signed the petition. While traditional scientific publishers claimed that the future of scientific communication as well as their €3 billion worth European industry is at risk. At the moment, the publishers' claim was honored and that the commission failed to enact a mandatory open-access policy for EU-funded scientists. Advocates of the open-access contend that scientific papers should be available to everyone for free.