[GOAL] Effect of Green OA on Publishers

[David Prosser]

Dear All

As many of you know, the European Commission has funded a project - PEER - over the past few years to look at what effect, if any, green OA through embargoed access would have on publishers - both in terms of downloads at the publisher sites and subscriptions.    

Today in Brussels the PEER project reported on its findings.  The meeting opened with a flying visit from the Commissioner for Info Soc and Vice President of the Commission, Neelie Kroes.  Madam Kroes is a strong supporter of OA and gave a straight message to the audience - Open Access is not a luxury, but a necessity; OA is vital for growth and sharing knowledge benefits society and the economy; and traditional ways of doing things have no favoured status - we all need to change. She said that the EC is working on OA recommendation to all the member states.

After that, we began to get the results.  Others will write in more details I'm sure, complete with caveats and health warnings, but the headlines are:

1. There is no evidence of any harm to publishers as a result of embargoed green OA
2. There is evidence of increased total usage through green OA 
3. There is evidence that green OA through the PEER project actually drives usage at the publisher site.

An economic analysis also suggested that the cost of organising peer review is $250 per submission - an interesting factoid.

More details of the PEER project can be found at http://www.peerproject.eu/ while Madam Kroes' speech is at:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/12/392&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en 

Best wishes

David



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