ISS “Louk Box” EADI IMWG conference “Open Access”

ISS "Louk Box" EADI IMWG conference "Open Access"
Institute of Social Studies
31 min – Oct 2, 2007

Access Ltd: closure and openness in development studies

Institute of Social Studies.
EADI IMWG conference on "Open Access".

After a period of experimentation and remarkable openness due to developments in electronic communication, academic work in development studies does not seem to profit from the opportunities that technology has offered. Promising developments in the 1990’s (OneWorld, Euforic, Eland, GDN and the start of SciDev) created euphoria around the possibilities of North-South cooperation. Are we losing momentum? Do Northern based researchers really support public access journals, or other publications? Do Southern based researchers make use of the materials offered by these media? A plea is made for a transformation of knowledge exchange in development studies through quality peer reviewed on-line globally oriented journals (like PLOS) which stimulate commercial publishers to provide greater access to materials and researchers to publish in them. This is the more the case because most materials stem from public institutions and could therefore be argued to be in the public domain.

Author: Professor of international cooperation and rector at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague. ISS is a leading European graduate school in development studies providing Diploma, Masters and Doctoral programmes to professionals from the Global South and North. The author was formerly associated with various OneWorld initiatives, Euforic, and SciDev.