Open Access As An Economic War

Richard Poynder published an article on the ugly economic background of the big scientific publishers (Springer, Elsevier, etc…). He thinks they might be succeeding in making even more profits by the way they are reacting to the Open Access movement. The ugly thing about this is that it’s just another scheme to turn public taxmoney into private profits. Poynder is thus suggesting that scientists, libraries, universities should back the green road to OA more forcefully. The most promising way seems to be universities and funding organizations mandating their researchers to publish OA. The only reason why this is not happening faster is institutions dragging their feet. E.g. Switzerland may have the highest ratio of universities with OA-mandates but their is no real reason why the remaining ones (Basel, Lausanne, Geneva, Lucerne, Berne, Fribourg, Lugano, Neuchatel) should not follow the example of Zurich (U and ETH), St. Gallen and the Swiss National Science Foundation in mandating their researchers to publish OA now. In the meantime, why don’t we start refusing to review for journals from big publishers?

(Another ugly way of turning public money into private profits relating to Switzerland is freeing international sport associations from taxes. See the current discussion in German.)

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