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Paywalls block scientific progress. Research should be open to everyone

Worldwide organizations are vying for open access research papers. Academics need to take action.

Some of the most important discoveries of the 21st century are stuck behind paywalls. For-profit publishers have been in charge of releasing tax-funded studies. The only problem is that it costs millions of dollars if you want to access them all. An estimated $28.4 USD are redirected from higher education to for-profit publishers bank accounts each year. Luckily, a movement to make published papers open to the public led by Plan-S is gaining traction. Backed by the likes of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and UK Research and Innovation, they propose that all research should be open access by 2021. California also recently passed AB 2192, a law that requires anything funded by the state to be made open access within one year of publication.

The Guardian - Jason Schmitt

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