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The European Commission, the European Research Advisory Board and the
European Research Councils have recently each recommended adopting the
policy of providing Open Access to research results:


http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/research/eurab/pdf/eurab_scipub_report_recomm_dec06_en.pdf
    http://erc.europa.eu/pdf/open-access.pdf

Very similar recommendations are also being made by governmental
research organisations in the United States, Canada, Australia, and
Asia:

    http://www.eprints.org/signup/fulllist.php

There are non-research interests strongly lobbying against these
recommendations, so a display of support by the research community is
critically important.

A consortium of European organisations -- JISC (Joint Information
Systems Committee, UK), SURF (Netherlands), SPARC Europe, DFG
(Deutsches Forschungsgemeinschaft, Germany), DEFF (Danmarks
Elektroniske Fag- og Forskningsbibliotek, Denmark) -- is now sponsoring
a petition to the European Commission to demonstrate support for these
recommendations on the part of the European and worldwide research
community.

Signatures may be added by individual researchers or universities and
research institutions. Researchers, lab directors, institutute
directors, university research VPs and DVCs, are all strongly urged to
register your support.

Please sign the OA petition here:

    http://www.ec-petition.eu/

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum
http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.html