Press Release - UKPMC Publishers Panel Statement of Principle

["Janice Kuta" <kuta@stm-assoc.org>]

[Embargoed until 1200 GMT 8 October 2007]

Press Release - UKPMC Publishers Panel Statement of Principle 
Publishers and Funders reach agreement on open access and re-use 
rights

L0NDON, 8 October 2007 - The UK PubMed Central Publishers Panel, 
a panel comprising research funders and scientific, technical, 
medical and scholarly publisher trade associations, has agreed a 
set of principles in relation to the re-use of documents for 
which an open access fee has been paid.

The agreement recognises that it is in the interests of fostering 
and promoting research that open access articles may be freely 
copied and used for text and data mining purposes, provided that 
such uses are fully attributed, undertaken on a non-commercial 
basis, and do not interfere with any moral rights of the 
author(s) of the articles.

In addition to making such papers open and freely accessible to 
all users worldwide at the time of publication, other re-use of 
the content - such as further redistribution, adaptation and 
translation - is encouraged under licence from individual 
rights-holders.

Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust welcomed this 
agreement.  "It is essential that full advantage is taken of the 
opportunities provided by open access to the results of research. 
Reading the results of the research is only the first step - if 
an important one!  Huge added value can be added to research by 
linking the text of scientific papers to databases, such as 
protein sequence and structural databases and genome databases. 
Sophisticated text mining techniques can link related papers one 
to another, which may lead to the development of new scientific 
ideas or, alternatively question the significance of some 
results.  This agreement between funders and publishers will help 
to maximise the value of research results, an outcome which is 
good for science and society."

A number of publishers already provide an open access option in 
accord with the principles agreed here including Springer, OUP 
and Elsevier.

The Statement of Principle also stresses the value publishers add 
to the research process, and encourages funding bodies to 
establish clear funding mechanisms to ensure that these 
legitimate research costs can be met.

"This statement demonstrates that funders and publishers can work 
together constructively for the benefit of scholarly 
communication," commented Bob Campbell, Senior Publisher at 
Wiley-Blackwell.

The full Statement of Principle can be found at: 
<http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc%5Fwtx041316.html>

Notes to Editors

1. The UKPMC Publishers Panel is made up of representatives of 
the funders of UK PubMed Central and the following trade 
associations: The Publishers Association, the International 
Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and 
the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers

2. UK PubMed Central is funded by the following research funders: 
Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC), Biotechnology and Biological 
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), British Heart Foundation 
(BHF), Cancer Research UK (CR-UK), Chief Scientist Office of the 
Scottish Executive Health Department (CSO), Department of Health 
(DH), Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust. 
The Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) and the 
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) are associate members 
of the UKPMC Funders Group.

3. The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK.  It funds 
innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, 
spending around pounds3500 million each year to support the 
brightest scientists with the best ideas.  The Wellcome Trust 
supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact 
on health and wellbeing.

4. The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers 
(ALPSP) is the international trade association for not-for-profit 
publishers and those who work with them.

5. The Publishers Association's (PA) mission is to strengthen the 
trading environment for UK publishers, by providing a strong 
voice for the industry in Government, within society and with 
other stakeholders in the UK, in Europe and internationally; 
providing a forum for the exchange of non-competitive information 
between publishers; and providing support and guidance to the 
industry through technological and other changes.

6. STM, the International Association of Scientific, Technical 
and Medical Publishers, is an international association of about 
100 scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishers, 
collectively responsible for more than 60% of the global annual 
output of research articles, over half the active research 
journals and the publication of tens of thousands of print and 
electronic books, reference works and databases.

For further information, please contact:

Michael Mabe, STM, e-mail mabe@stm-assoc.org or phone 44 1865 339321

Janice E. Kuta
Director of Marketing & Membership
International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers
E-mail: kuta@stm-assoc.org
Tel: 212-533-0832
Fax: 212-420-8407
www.stm-assoc.org