University Of California To Open Its Research Vaults, For Free

The University of California has open-sourced all future research articles authored by faculty at all of its 10 campuses. The articles will be made available to the public at no charge.

Scholarly publishing has been an industry onto itself for decades now: academic researchers acquire grants (usually from the government) for research programs, and provide articles with their findings to publishers of scholarly journals, who package them and sell them to paying subscribers. However, the new UC policy will open up access to these research articles to the public as well, at no cost.

UC faculty articles will be available to the public via eScholarship (UC’s open access repository) in tandem with their publication in scholarly journals, university administrators announced. The purpose of this unfettered open access is to help accelerate “the pace of research, discovery and innovation.”