From Budapest to Brussels: Hungarian Academy of Sciences Signs EC OA Petition

Dear Colleagues, Please pardon me a moment of Pannonian pride: It is mete and fitting that the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Professor E. Sylvester Vizi, has today signed the Petition in support of the European Commission's proposed Open Access Self-Archiving Mandate, on behalf of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. http://www.ec-petition.eu/ The Open Access Movement began in Budapest in December 2001 as the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), launched by the Hungarian philanthropist, George Soros and the Open Society Institute (OSI). http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ OA has since become a global movement and is now accelerating rapidly toward the critical step that will usher in Open Access to all research output worldwide, starting in Europe with the EC Self-Archiving Mandate, but inevitably to be followed in the US with the FRPAA Self-Archiving Mandate, and elsewhere in the world by kindred policies: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=European%2… http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/fullinfo.php?inst=Federal%20… I cannot resist adding (though it includes an element of conjecture) that Pannonia even had a hand in formulating the optimal version of the European OA Self-Archiving mandate, in the form of the European Research Advisory Board's (EURAB) policy proposal: http://ec.europa.eu/research/eurab/pdf/eurab_scipub_report_recomm_dec06_en.… On the EURAB committee that formulated that excellent policy was the Vice President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Professor Norbert Kroo. The President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has now closed the circle, in signing the EC OA petition on behalf of the Academy. Many thanks also too to Prof. Csaba Pleh, Deputy General Secretary of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, who also played a critical mediating role. http://www.mta.hu/index.php?id=634&no_cache=1&backPid=390&tt_ne… as did Barbara Kirsop, of EPT: http://www.mta.hu/index.php?id=858&backPid=406&tt_news=3575&cHa… Sincerely, Hernad Istvan (Stevan Harnad) Corresponding Member, Hungarian Academy of Sciences