Argentina embracing 'Open Access'

Argentina is nationalizing its science output...  On 23 May the House of Representatives, Argentina’s lower house, approved a bill that would require the results of all scientific research conducted at or funded by the Argentina’s National System for Science and Research to be made freely available in an online depository.

Such legislation is still uncommon at a national level, but some governments, including in the United Kingdom, have begun making plans for requiring open-access publishing of science they fund, as Nature reported earlier this month.

The European Commission may also be lending its support to open-access publishing, reports the Times Higher Education. Next month, the commission should issue its policy on publishing research funded by its seven-year Horizon 2020 funding programme. With an annual budget of more than €11 billion (US$13.8 billion), Horizon 2020 is one of the largest research funders in the world, and one of the few that operate internationally, so its influence could be important.