Anna Leach of the Wall Street Journal reports, “New scientific research must be published for free online, the vice-president of the European Commission said, in a move designed to increase the knowledge pool open to small business and lead to more innovative products. All scientists receiving European Union funding will have to publish their results in an open-access format, Neelie Kroes, the commissioner responsible for Europe’s digital agenda, said Monday in Stockholm.  Ms. Kroes also  launched the global Research Data Alliance — a group committed to pooling and co-ordinating scientific data so it can be shared better.”

Leach continues, “Opening up scientific research is good for small business, said Victor Henning, CEO of British startup Mendeley, which aims to make academic research more connected. He has noticed the demand for access to academic research from small businesses. Read more

The Economist has published an article regarding the need to open up publically funded science. The article states, “If there is any endeavour whose fruits should be freely available, that endeavour is surely publicly financed science. Morally, taxpayers who wish to should be able to read about it without further expense. And science advances through cross-fertilisation between projects. Barriers to that exchange slow it down. There is a widespread feeling that the journal publishers who have mediated this exchange for the past century or more are becoming an impediment to it. One of the latest converts is the British government. On July 16th it announced that, from 2013, the results of taxpayer-financed research would be available, free and online, for anyone to read and redistribute.” Read more