PhD students urged to sign up to the LERU Statement on Open Access

The LERU Statement outlines that Open Access to publications is essential and business models of publishers must support this transition. LERU argue it should be one of the principal objectives of Commissioner Carlos Moedas and the Dutch EU Presidency (January-June 2016) to ensure that this transition happens.

The Statement highlights a number of challenges, where researchers pay a separate charge to have their publication produced as an Open Access article (an Article Processing Charge, or APC). While their institutional library is paying a subscription for access to the same content.

This leads to the danger of double payment to the publishers, once for the subscription and once for Open Access - known technically as double dipping. The Statement makes clear that Christmas is over, since universities and research funders should not be paying twice for the same content.

Paul Ayris explains, "LERU has called on researchers in all LERU universities to sign its petition to the European Commission. LERU itself as an organisation has agreed to sign. At the time of writing, over 400 organisations and individuals have signed.

"So it's over to you! Please consider signing the statement. With your support, LERU can help make a fundamental difference to the way research outputs are disseminated."

Dr Paul Ayris, Director of UCL Library Services, UCL Copyright Officer and Chief Executive, UCL Press