BBC Focus Magazine

[M Paul Lloyd]

YEEEEHAAAAA!

By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
The government is to develop plans to make publicly funded research results freely available to all.
Currently, scientists and members of the public have to pay the leading scientific journals to see research that has already been paid for from the public purse.
Under new proposals the government will pay publishers a fee each time a paper is published.
In return the research will be available to those who wish to see it.
The total cost of the subsidy is estimated to be £50m a year which will be taken from funds that would otherwise have been spent on research.
Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said: "Removing paywalls that surround taxpayer funded research will have real economic and social benefits.
"It will allow academics and businesses to develop and commercialise their research more easily and herald a new era of academic discovery."

More here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18860276