NWO rolling up sleeves for Open Access

The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO will actively encourage Open Access. To that end, the organization sets aside five million euro. NWO has confirmed details published in an article in newspaper NRC-Handelsblad on 27 October.

NWO chair Jos Engelen personally informed NRC-Handelsblad of the new course; the newspaper had recently published a large article on the progress of Open Access publishing in the Netherlands. The pressure to reveal its true colors in the global discussion on making research results public had been felt at NWO for some time, spokesperson Jorrit Kelder explains. An internal working group of representatives from the various disciplines was formed at the end of September. Probably before the end of the year, it will submit a proposal to NWO’s board on the shape the support for Open Access will take, and on how the five million euro will be spent.

Engelen is already strongly appealing to prominent scientists, according to NRC-Handelsblad, to ‘not take their publications to the traditional journals, but opt for an online-only journal’. The momentum which the idea of Open Access-appears to be gaining internationally did play a role in the new viewpoint taken by the research organization, says Kelder. NWO’s Swedish counterpart recently decided to make Open Access publishing obligatory component of subsidies it awards.

Engelen commented in NRC: ‘I want to implement this Swedish model as soon as possible. I think that this obligation will be part of our conditions within a few years as well.’