A word from the DG: A new model for sharing knowledge

As we all know, a fundamental aim in scientific research is to publish the results with as wide a dissemination as possible. Researchers have access to the literature through libraries, but what happens when subscription fees for scientific journals increase year after year, way beyond inflation? Today we have reached a situation where groups of LHC physicists publish in journals they are unable to read from their home institutes. And, as you might have noticed, even the CERN Library struggles to maintain a coherent collection. This is of course not only in contradiction with the purpose of science; it also has important implications for issues such as education and technology transfer.

The European Commission has been aware of the problem for some time and is encouraging the various stakeholders in scientific publishing to experiment with new models for publication that may improve both access to and dissemination of scientific information. In this context, CERN has been a catalyst over the past two years among representatives of European funding agencies, librarians, laboratories and particle physics publishers in defining a new business model for scientific publishing which will offer free access for anyone to peer-reviewed articles via the Web. This model, currently collecting significant support, was presented at a meeting in Brussels to 500 delegates, representing researchers across all sciences, research administrators and publishers, and more recently last week to a meeting of representatives of particle physics funding agencies organised here at CERN.

This vision clearly goes beyond CERN. Reforming the publishing system requires the whole community at world level, in one discipline, to unite behind a new model. There are also reasons to believe that the vision might spread to other fields of physics and even into other disciplines. The strong Open Access statement that has been endorsed over recent weeks by the collaboration boards of ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and TOTEM is of great importance. It demonstrates the commitment of the entire LHC community and we see that it is already influencing the publishing industry.

By proposing a new model for publishing we are challenging a 350 year old tradition, but as in many other domains, LHC physics requires new thinking. With this background and in the spirit of sharing knowledge, as in the development of the Web and now for the Grid, I strongly support the move towards a new publishing paradigm. Scientific publishing is changing and it is natural to me that LHC physics results should be published in a way that is accessible to everyone.

Robert Aymar