Open-access petition presented to EC
The petition calling on the European Commission to adopt polices to guarantee free public access to research results has been delivered to Janez Potocnik, EU Commissioner for Science and Research. Potocnik received the petition before the start of an EC-hosted meeting in Brussels to discuss widening access to research results.
The signatories, more than 20,000 concerned researchers, senior academics, lecturers, librarians and citizens from across Europe and around the world, include Nobel laureates Peter Agre, Martinus Veltman, and Harold Varmus, and Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder. Senior representatives from nearly 750 education, research and cultural organisations from around the world also signed, as did research funders such as the European Research Council, German Research Council, Swedish Research Council, UK's Medical Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust.