Government Makes NIH Research Open Access

TaeKwonDood writes "Let's give some credit to the government when they do something right; in this case freeing $29 billion of taxpayer money in NIH research to actual taxpayers. Within one year after peer review, NIH-funded research has to be made freely available on PubMed. A Democratic Congress passed it and a Republican president signed it. This is a tremendous asset to researchers who don't want to have to duplicate research or pay fees for every journal out there. Those media companies getting rich selling journals, like the ACS, don't like it, but everyone else will."

Comments

Government not the answer

[bill_mcgonigle]

and with the spending going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sub-prime problem, potential economic recession and more leaves very little room to move.

This is one of the better arguments I've heard for funding science through means other than governments. Governments tend to do a bad job, are subject to bloat, corruption and influence peddling, and can't be fired. Plus, as you point out, their spending priorities are inconsistent over time. This makes staffing/careers wildly difficult, which is bad for science. Private charities and foundations would be a better source for funding science. I don't know how much exists currently to support this model, but it's worth pursuing.

Remember: Government != Society - those are two separate things, despite how much the US Government has tried to take over Society in the past century.

Plus, charity has a morally supportable philosophy if you're not in the "the ends justify the means" camp. I really want to find (or not find) the Higgs boson, but not if somebody's property has been confiscated under threat of violence for it.