Harvard Goes Open Access

Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted on February 12th to make faculty member's articles available via an open access repository. Coupled with the recent Congressional mandate that research funded by the National Institutes of Health be accessible through PubMed Central, this decision could have a tremendous impact on the future of scholarly publishing models. In a press release, Provost Steven E. Hyman emphasized universities and, especially Harvard’s, responsibility to disseminate and preserve research “of global significance” to a larger audience:

Today's action in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will promote free and open access to significant, ongoing research. It is a first step in the creation of an open-access environment for current research that may one day provide the widest possible dissemination of Harvard's distinguished faculties' work," he added.