EU plan for research to hit publishers

The European Union, which controls one of the world’s largest science budgets, said on Tuesday it would give free access to all research funded by European taxpayers, in a move that could hit the profits of scientific publishers such as Reed Elsevier, Wiley and Springer.

Plans by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to release for free and to a wider audience articles usually held by expensive academic journals would benefit innovation, but would force publishers, which currently generate about $8bn in revenues, to revolutionise their business models, analysts said.