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Tot de initiatiefnemers horen Matthias Kleiner, President van de DFG in Duitsland en SURF-directeur Wim Liebrand. Potocnik schrijft hen:

‘The description of Knowledge Exchange initiatives that you provide is impressive and illustrates that stakeholders in the area of access to scientific information have been very active since the research community sent a powerful message, on 15 February 2007, by presenting to me the petition that you refer to calling for open access to publicly funded research results.


With regard to your suggestions as to future Commission activity, I am happy to be able to inform you that many actions are already underway. As you may know, the Commission recently launched an open access pilot in FP7. Under this pilot, FP7 grant recipients in seven areas of the 7th Framework Programme are required to deposit articles resulting from FP7 projects in a repository, and to make their best efforts to provide open access to these articles within a specific embargo period. The open access pilot signals the Commission’s commitment towards ensuring that results of the research it funds under FP7 are disseminated as widely and effectively as possible to guarantee maximum impact in the world of researchers and beyond.

In addition, the Commission encourages all grant recipients to consider the question of open access when submitting their articles for publication in an effort to reduce the likelihood of wasting time and resources on duplicative research. Furthermore, reimbursement of open access publishing fees is already available under the FP7 Grant Agreement which states that publication costs are eligible and reimbursable at a rate of 100% during the duration of FP7 projects.


The Commission also supports capacity-building in the area of access to scientific information by funding infrastructure projects such as DRIVER (Digital Repository Infrastructure Vision for European Research), as well as a series of studies investigating the impact of new publishing business models and facilitating networking. One of these is the Open Access Publishing in European Networks project which focuses on open access in the humanities and social sciences. Information on other EC-funded projects will be available soon.


Finally, in accordance with the recommendations of the November 2007 Council Conclusions that you cite, the Commission plans to engage more closely with Members States and mobilise them to develop common policies in the area of access to scientific information. I thank you sincerely for your interest and suggestions, and welcome your continued collaboration with the Commission in order to enhance access to publicly funded research results.’