Push to ‘reclaim ownership’ of publishing gathers pace

Frédérique Vidal joins research funders in drive to change academic publishing landscape

Research leaders and influential politicians have escalated their push for academics and funders to take more control of academic publishing away from for-profit companies.

Last week, France’s research minister Frédérique Vidal (pictured) stressed that open-access publishing is needed to “democratise access to knowledge”, and called for a more “diversified and balanced” publishing landscape. She was speaking at an event where funders launched an initiative to build global support for the ‘diamond’ model of open-access publishing, in which articles are free to authors and readers.