All EU scientific articles to be free by 2020

[Mihalik]

From 2020, all scientific publications on the results of publicly funded research must be freely available. It also must be able to optimally reuse research data. To achieve that, the data must be made accessible, unless there are well-founded reasons for not doing so, for example intellectual property rights or security or privacy issues.

Not every scientific article produced in the EU will be free, just the publicly funded ones.

[Ripster42]

How many scientists do you know personally, and how many do you know at a time when they were entering the career? If scientists wanted money OR fame, they would have become lawyers, doctors, or businessmen just like everybody else.

Please tell me that's not a serious question. Elite scientists want fame within their field. Career scientists want to publish to get tenure. You have a very confused outlook on the motivation of many scientists. A lot just want a job. Scientists aren't just some holy men interested solely in the pursuit of science. Get a grip.

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Not every scientific article produced in the EU will be free, just the publicly funded ones.

And let me know when the vast majority of research projects don't have public funding in some form or another. And still doesn't solve the problem of critical review for publicly funded papers. Which means you're now just publicly funding work held to poorer standards.

[Illuminance]

Please tell me that's not a serious question. Elite scientists want fame within their field. Career scientists want to publish to get tenure. You have a very confused outlook on the motivation of many scientists. A lot just want a job. Scientists aren't just some holy men interested solely in the pursuit of science. Get a grip.

Elite scientists basically stumbled on fame while working in very modest conditions. Most don't want fame - they want to make a contribution, which sometimes leads to fame depending on how lucky they are. Most career scientists aren't tenure-track. If they "just wanted a job," the vast majority of scientists could find easier work that paid better.

Get a grip? Where do you even get this opinion from? Is it from talking to scientists, or are you just pulling this out of wherever you pull your information from?

[Ripster42]

Elite scientists basically stumbled on fame while working in very modest conditions. Most don't want fame - they want to make a contribution, which sometimes leads to fame depending on how lucky they are. Many career scientists (most, probably) aren't tenure-track. If they "just wanted a job," the vast majority of scientists could find easier work that paid better.

Get a grip? Where do you even get this opinion from? Is it from talking to scientists, or are you just pulling this out of wherever you pull your information from?

Really? You're seriously asking for anecdotal evidence from someone on the internet. While I do know scientists, and was trained as one, and was related to some, including a great uncle that worked for northrup during apollo, that doesn't mean shit on the internet. Instead look at human behavior.

By the way, most scientists who work on publicly funded research projects, work at universities as professors, who either have tenure or are trying to get tenure so they aren't pressured to publish as much. Quit talking out of your ass, as you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

[Kuntantee]

Most don't want fame - they want to make a contribution.

As someone from Academia, I can certainly tell you that most do not give a flying fuck about contribution. They do it because they can or other options at the end of graduation was not attractive. Some research for a "higher purpose", but I haven't seen one of those types yet.

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Not every scientific article produced in the EU will be free, just the publicly funded ones.

According to my observation in Europe, overwhelming majority of research topics are publicly funded. Horizon 2020, whatnot. I wonder how they are going to pay for all the papers to publishers.

[Illuminance]

By the way, most scientists who work on publicly funded research projects, work at universities as professors, who either have tenure or are trying to get tenure so they aren't pressured to publish as much. Quit talking out of your ass, as you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

As a scientist working at a university on publicly funded projects, I can say with certainty that this is not true. Tenure track jobs are in the minority (the number of PhD graduates in science who land one is about 10%), and those that have them have teams of scientists working for them who are neither rich nor famous nor pursuing tenure. Tenured professors don't even do research in the sense that most people think about it - they just petition the government for money so that their team can pursue the research objectives.

The median post-doc pay, for example, in chemistry or biology, is $40,000 a year. That's for someone who has a Ph.D. You were joking about holy men pursuing science for its own sake, but that more accurately describes most scientists than you think.

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As someone from Academia, I can certainly tell you that most do not give a flying fuck about contribution. They do it because they can or other options at the end of graduation was not attractive. Some research for a "higher purpose", but I haven't seen one of those types yet.

If scientists pursued the path of least resistance, no one would major in anything as tough as any of the STEM fields. If you are jaded by med school wannabes, then you know some pretty poor examples of scientists.

[Kuntantee]

If scientists pursued the path of least resistance, no one would major in anything as tough as any of the STEM fields. If you are jaded by med school wannabes, then you know some pretty poor examples of scientists.

So you are the guy who knows it all huh? I have a master's degree in a STEM field. STEM is not that hard, not until PhD at which creativity comes into play and it is what will challenge people. The perception of STEm being really though is a myth produced by stupid people to decieve layman, such as yourself, for some odd reasons.

I worked with quite good scientists. One of them was doctoral student of Higgs. I am a novice scientist myself. I used to have lunch with my professors, had tons of conversations from philosophy of science to motivation etc. Never seen anyone who do it for the higher purpose you mentioned earlier. Most of the seem to do it, because they can.

[Deleted]

It seems people are forgetting that since their birth in 1665 most scientific journals were run as non-profits of academic societies.

It is only since the 60s and 70s that saw the sharp rise of commercial journals.

Also with 40%+ profit margins at the dominant scientific publishers, yet with two primary inputs that are effectively free (scientific papers and peer review), even world class banking analysts have noted that these publishers can only be adding little value, i.e. their overall costs are nowhere near what they claim, and are therefore highly vulnerable to disruption regardless of it source.

[Illuminance]

So you are the guy who knows it all huh? I have a master's degree in a STEM field. STEM is not that hard, not until PhD at which creativity comes into play and it is what will challenge people. The perception of STEm being really though is a myth produced by stupid people to decieve layman, such as yourself, for some odd reasons.

I worked with quite good scientists. One of them was doctoral student of Higgs. I am a novice scientist myself. I used to have lunch with my professors, had tons of conversations from philosophy of science to motivation etc. Never seen anyone who do it for the higher purpose you mentioned earlier.

I think it's more accurate to say that most do it because they are interested in the subject material. The contribution aspect is just nice, except for the very few who are in it because of a personal reason (i.e., "my aunt died from lung cancer"). I think the comparison I wanted to make is that most aren't interested in money or fame - why would you go into science for either of those? Higgs is a good example. I don't think he thought physics would be his get-rich-quick scheme.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Probably nice for companies, but not much gain for most universities, since every one that isn't total shite usually already has access to these.

[PC2]

So are most science papers submitted to organizations like Elsevier publicly funded or privately funded?

Since this doesn't apply to privately funded articles.

[Eviscero]

So are most science papers submitted to organizations like Elsevier publicly funded or privately funded?

Since this doesn't apply to privately funded articles.

Public. Publishing is most often not a goal of privately funded research.

[PC2]

Public. Publishing is most often not a goal of privately funded research.

I see, I tend to pay attention to organizations like Google who seem to be more open regarding their employees publishing.

[Ripster42]

As a scientist working at a university on publicly funded projects, I can say with certainty that this is not true. Tenure track jobs are in the minority (the number of PhD graduates in science who land one is about 10%), and those that have them have teams of scientists working for them who are neither rich nor famous nor pursuing tenure. Tenured professors don't even do research in the sense that most people think about it - they just petition the government for money so that their team can pursue the research objectives.

The median post-doc pay, for example, in chemistry or biology, is $40,000 a year. That's for someone who has a Ph.D. You were joking about holy men pursuing science for its own sake, but that more accurately describes most scientists than you think.

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If scientists pursued the path of least resistance, no one would major in anything as tough as any of the STEM fields. If you are jaded by med school wannabes, then you know some pretty poor examples of scientists.

If you don't think those teams of scientists aren't looking for tenure I don't know what to tell you. They want to be part of a project that either provides them recognition, that's fame, or are looking for a job in a field that interests them, that's money. It literally seems like you don't know what motivates people. And lets be clear here, we're not talking about the ethical people. We're talking about the unethical people here. The people willing to pay to get their papers in a journal to save their job, get a better job, get a job in the first place. The people willing to take their money and publish without actually scrutinizing too close at what they publish. I'm not accusing all scientists, I'm saying that by requiring all publicly funded research to be provided free from publishers, you're losing one of the best controls on quality of publication.

Yes, I know how the grant system works. I've heard about it for years. My brother-in-law is currently trying to get funding for an endowment to try to sponsor research for rights to the data to try to mitigate/bypass it because he hated writing so many grant applications. I've heard literally all the complaints against the current grant system as this has been a years long project and their first pitch at a vc is still more than a year away.

[Kuntantee]

Public. Publishing is most often not a goal of privately funded research.

This is a misinformation. Elsevier and Springer are not public, they are privately owned. IEEE and possibly ACM are non-profit, but they do business very similar to for profit, I just don't understand how they were granted the not-for-profit status.

[Forogil]

Public. Publishing is most often not a goal of privately funded research.

Or a mix of public and private if a company is involved, but even in that case it must be freely accessible. (Since anything "supported by public funds" must be public.)

Oh, and all data must be publicly available in most cases - that is very interesting.

[Ryme]

What a great idea, well done EU keep this kind of work up.

[May90]

"From 2020, all scientific publications on the results of publicly funded research must be freely available."

The title is a bit misleading, just saying.

[Skroe]

The truth of the matter is, if you work or attend a university, they have free-usage and lisencing deals with most journals. If you work for a company, then you just put it on the company credit card (so who cares that you have to pay).

The problem arises for independent researchers, of which there are many.

But a grad student at a university should be paying close to nothing, or the university that he is attached to should be paying that.

[Kuntantee]

T
The problem arises for independent researchers, of which there are many.

Don't you have state libraries over there? We have plenty in here, Turkey. Mind you, Turkey's non-university/non-college libraries are shit but they have access to most of these journals.