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The Scottish Declaration on Open Access Event took place on the 11th October 2004 as planned. It was well attended by senior representatives from Scottish universities, research funders, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, the Scottish Executive, and others. A number of institutions have already indicated a willingness to sign the declaration and others are actively considering the question. Further information on the event and on institutional and individual sign-ups to the declaration will be posted on this web-site in the next few weeks.

Speakers were Jan Velterop, Elaine Fulton, Tim O'Shea and Mark Walport. Presentation slides for some of these presentations are available below:

Jan Velterop, BioMed Central
"An open access publisher’s view".
Available: HTML or PPS.

Elaine Fulton, Scottish Library & Information Council (SLIC)
"Open Access: its contribution to developing a National Information Strategy".
Available: HTML or PPS.

Mark Walport, Wellcome Trust
"Publication costs are research costs"
Available: HTML or PPS.

Details of the meeting itself can be found below.

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11th October 2004

A meeting has been arranged to raise the profile of Open Access publishing amongst Scottish research funders and universities, and to launch a 'Scottish Declaration on Open Access'. The group has also been examining issues to do with the establishment of institutional repositories in Scottish universities and for other research organisations.

The meeting is to be held in the morning of October 11th at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The speakers are:
Mark Walport, Director Wellcome Trust
Jan Velterop, Biomed Central
Tim O’Shea, Principal, University of Edinburgh University Library
Rhona Brankin, MSP (to be confirmed).
With Wilson Sibbett, Chair Scottish Science Advisory Council chairing.

At the end of the meeting, we expect some groups to sign up to the Declaration (Draft Declaration). We will be launching the Declaration at this point, expecting others to sign up in due course, and hoping that it will presented to the Scottish Parliament for formal adoption. A major part of the work of the group will be to lobby for attendance at the meeting, so that influential decision makers can hear about Open Access, and to lobby for signing the Declaration.

Probable Attendees