Swedish Research Council open access policy

http://www.sciecom.org/sciecominfo
SCIECOMINFO 3 (2009) (http://www.sciecom.org/sciecominfo)
Dear Readers,
Our most important News is the Swedish Research Council’s OA-mandate.” To obtain a research grant, the Swedish Research Council now requires researchers to publish their material so as to make it available to all. The public and other researchers should have free access to all material financed by public means. Further Information.
We also want to point to the 1st Conference on Open Access Scholarly Publishing(COASP) held in Lund, Sweden 14-16 September this year. The recordings of the individual presentations are posted at http://www.river-valley.tv.
In our series Open Minds Jan Hagerlid presents an interview with Gunnel Engwall, President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, professor of Romance languages at Stockholm University. She relates the Academy’s motives for signing both the Berlin declaration and the EU-petition in 2007 and the consecutive measures taken by the Academy. Gunnel Enwall also discusses publishing patterns in the Humanities and the current popular evaluation metrics.
A new Danish open access network (DOAN) has been established. This and other developments in Denmark are reported by our Danish editor Adrian Price.
In his article Building a repository infrastructure for Finland, Jyrki Ilva, Systems librarian at the National Library of Finland presents the background and developments, valuable experiences and best practice, and challenges for coming years.
Activities in Iceland are presented by two articles. Áslaug Ágnarsdottir’s The University of Iceland joins Skemman is a short report of their experiences and a somewhat surprising attitude to OA to their theses on the part of the students.
Ian Watson at Bifröst University writes about Starting an Open Access journal in Iceland. The Bifröst Journal of Social Science / Tímarit um félagsvísindi is one of Iceland’s first open access journals and the first to use Open Journal Systems software. His article summarizes lessons learned from the first three years of the journal’s operation.
From Norway Ingrid Cutler at the University of Bergen Library writes about Creating a library service for scholarly open access journals and describes the objectives of this service to support both independent journals wanton to convert to open access, and professional groups desiring a service for the starting of a new journal with open access.Focus is on the library’s experiences in establishing and offering such a service.
Ingar Lomheim at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology Library reports on their publishing activities in The focus on publishing at the NTNU library. The NTNU has decided to put a special focus on publishing, and the article describes the two major reasons for this decision as well as the project organisation, goals, resources, and open access publishing

Futurity (www.futurity.org)

The University of Pennsylvania has joined a group of leading research universities to launch Futurity (www.futurity.org), an online research channel covering the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health and more. Penn is one of 35 founding partners supporting the site, which offers direct access to research news posted by Penn and other universities.
Futurity provides the public with direct access to research breakthroughs by combining visual elements and lay explanation with links to published reports and supplemental materials that allow readers to explore topics in more detail. The site, designed to encourage interaction, is available in a mobile-friendly version, and visitors can comment on stories and sign up for a daily e-mail updates.“With news holes shrinking, Futurity allows major research universities to build a bridge between the academic community and the public,” Steven J. Fluharty, vice president for research at Penn, said. “The site provides both the casual reader with an interest in science — as well as the seasoned researcher or science journalist — with quick access to a comprehensive and varied body of national research.”Futurity cofounder Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke University, says the site serves another vital role. It allows the public to see how federal, state and private funding are being put to use by universities to address critical challenges.
Organised into:
Earth & Environment
Health & Medicine
Science & Design
Society & Culture