House of Commons ok’s OA
House of Commons - Science and Technology - Tenth Report
The report, entitled “Scientific Publications: Free for all?” is a result of the UK House of Commons Science & Technology Committee’s inquiry into scientific publications that has investigated pricing, access and availability issues.
“…all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way. The Government will need to appoint a central body to oversee the implementation of the repositories; to help with networking; and to ensure compliance with the technical standards needed to provide maximum functionality. Set-up and running costs are relatively low, making institutional repositories a cost-effective way of improving access to scientific publications.”