European Commission Considering Leap into Open-Access Publishing

One of Europe’s biggest science spenders could soon branch out into publishing. The European Commission, which spends more than €10 billion annually on research, may follow two other big league funders, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and set up a “publishing platform” for the scientists it funds, in an attempt to accelerate the transition to open-access publishing in Europe.

A commission spokesperson says the two charities, which opted for a system in which papers are reviewed after publication, are “models,” but that the commission is only “considering” the idea. But last week in Berlin, at a closed meeting of the Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP), European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas suggested a “decision” to create the platform had already been made, says Michael Mabe, CEO of the London-based International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM). OSPP member Sabina Leonelli of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, who tweeted from the meeting, confirms Mabe’s assessment.

Last year, European leaders adopted an ambitious plan to make all papers published in the union open access by 2020. But the new plan suggests the commission believes the publishing industry is moving too slowly, says Leo Waaijers, a former chief librarian at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. “I think there’s an element of desperation here,” says Waaijers, who welcomes the new idea...