Slashdot brings our attention to this article in The Register: "Dutch Academics Declare Research Free-for-All".
The Dutch website Darenet, available in English as well (though not working when I checked), serves as a repository for all research and will be accessible to the public via the Internet. Dutch academics will publish to the repository but be free to publish as well in journals or wherever else.
The Register article suggests that this would challenge the proprietary edge that science journals have on publishing research. It will also avail studies to a potentially wider audience, since academic journal publishing is competitive so not everyone gets published. As well, many journals dictate the terms of publication, in effect controlling how and when a researcher's work reaches what audience. Practices imposed by journals include charging per page to publish, coordinating press releases with journal publication dates, and dictating that research be kept confidential until it is published. These practices curtail the researchers ability to propagate their work and impose biases on what gets published. Since so much of research is publically funded, these restrictions bring to mind questions about how publically funded research can be restricted by the private interests of publishers. The Dutch government spends generously on research therefore wider exposer should be beneficial.
Whether this will be a more prevalent trend remains to be seen. Although published medical research is available via Pubmed, a lot is still difficult to access without a subscription. And while some academics disseminate their research freely, there is a certain cache- if you are a scientist- to getting published in Nature, Science or Cell and other top journals. The stature of these journals will no doubt continue to drive demand to be published in them.
