33 North American Institutions Sign Declaration On Open Access

Thirty-three research institutions, associations and foundations in North America last week signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, committing to support open access research in the future. The signing brings the total signers to nearly 300, including many of the top research institutions in the world.

The announcement came at the 9-10 November Berlin 9 conference, held in Washington, DC.

The Berlin Declaration aims to “make scientific and scholarly research more accessible to the broader public by taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by digital electronic communication,” according to the event press release. Signatories “support actions that ensure the future Web is sustainable, interactive, and transparent – and that content is openly accessible – in order to realize the vision of a global and accessible representation of knowledge.”

Sean Decatur, dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences at Oberlin College in Ohio, said in the statement: “The faculty of Oberlin College have made a commitment to disseminating the results of their research as widely as possible. That principled commitment is an expression of the view that Open Access to scholarship is an important step for the advancement of knowledge, helping to overcome barriers that restrict, rather than encourage, the sharing of ideas and engagement in discourse.”

The full list of signatories is available here.

The Berlin 9 Conference was organised by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Marine Biological Laboratory, the Max Planck Society, Association of Research Libraries, and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition).

Information about the Berlin Declaration, first launched in 2003, and how to sign, is here.