It has happened. Yesterday RCUK published the revised guidelines on its new open access policy and, as requested by this blog and everyone who signed up in support, the document (PDF) now includes, on page one no less, a statement that: RCUK’s Alexandra Saxon was good enough to make particular mention of our request in her blogpost to explain the most significant revisions in the new guidelines.

Following my post of last week asking RCUK to include in the guidelines on their new open access policy a statement disavowing the use of impact factors in assessing funding applications, I wanted to thank everyone who registered their support. I also wanted to provide the text of the letter that was sent yesterday to Alexandra Saxon, RCUK’s Head of Communications.  All the signatories are listed below.

If I had more time, this post would be shorter. But it explains how we have an opportunity to get UK research councils to help break the corrosive dependence of researchers on impact factors. Please at least skim all the way to the bottom to see how easy it is for you to participate. 15-3-2013: Please see update at the foot of this post for an important announcement from RCUK.

After all the excitement of open access (OA) developments last Friday, there was a chance to take stock this Monday at the Royal Society’s conference on “Open access in the UK and what it means for scientific research”. The meeting, which aimed to examine “the background to the new policy announced by David Willetts in July 2012, including the recommendations of the Finch working group, and (to) address the practical challenges of

Last Friday was a big day for open access — it felt like a kind of transition. In the morning the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords (the unelected second chamber in the UK parliament) published the report of its inquiry to the implementation of a new open access policy by Research Councils UK (RCUK) in the wake of the Finch Report.

Less than a week after the Royal Institution announced that it was contemplating the sale of its historic home in Albermarle Street, Nature published an editorial criticising the 200 year old organisation for having lost its science communication mojo in a world that had ‘moved on’. The journal went so far as to suggest that the RI should hand over its historical artefacts to the Science Museum and quit a field that is now over-run with

This week it is the turn of the House of Commons to investigate the UK policy on open access. No-one seems to be quite sure if they are co-ordinating things with the House of Lords, which was looking into this issue only last week, but on the plus side at least all these inquiries mean that OA remains a live topic. I made a submission to the House of Lords committee — outlining what I thought were several key points. Many others did the same.

The Science and Technology Committee of the House of Lords, the second chamber in the UK parliament, met this week to hear evidence from various stakeholders on the implementation of government’s policy on open access.

In the UK the parliamentary House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology is conducting an enquiry into the implementation of the government’s policy on open access.

The Christmas holiday has unmoored me. End of year exhaustion segued into a bout of ‘flu that knocked me onto my back, where I lay and ached, semi-detached by illness and medication as around me my family made preparations for a celebration that came and went. Even now, although I am recovering, a filmy phlegm clings to my throat, indifferent to coughing, and slides into my stomach while I sleep to nauseate my mornings.