Research activism

I'm usually very suspicious about petitions. But this one has a rationale and implications I fully understand and agree with. It's about research, that's what I do. It's about the lack of dissemination of findings and projects that sit on someone's desk as nice PhD thesis, or serve as market products for publishers who gatekeep access. A EU report showed that the price of scientific journals rose 200-300% beyond inflation between 1975-1995, in a market now worth up to $11bn (£5.6bn) a year. Who looses? The public, societies and research itself. Free access to research stands as crucial to a much wider and more effective knowledge. 16,000 people have signed the petion already, over 700 from Portugal, over 1,100 from the UK and including Nobel prize winners for medicine Harold Varmus and Richard Roberts. Read more in Publico and the Guardian. Needless to say, the petition is a EU initiative, the US wouldn't agree, would they?

Meanwhile, let's not just blame the system. It's also responsability of individual researchers to make sure their findings leave their offices and houses and to explore creative ways of reaching people. I believe it's part of the process. Unlikely you'll have a press office to do this job for you.