The European Commission will be seeking ways to promote open access to scientific research and open data, a movement known as Science 2.0. The announcement was made by Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European Commissioner for Research and Innovation.

The commissioner stressed the need to embrace Science 2.0, a movement which advocates sharing scientific information and collaboration in the era of digital technologies. Geoghegan-Quinn underlined the benefits scientific research harvest if it is in the hands of many people in a transparent, accessible and reproducible way. She emphasized that going fully open data and open access have “potentially far-reaching changes in the way we do science and research”. Science 2.0 advocates researchers make a greater effort to share information and embrace collaboration; both made easier by new digital data and network technologies.

Accelerated by new digital technologies, many things are happening in the field of scientific research and data collection. Yes we are in the big data era. According to SNTEF , 90 per cent of all the data in the world had been generated over the past two years alone. The commissioner said that the data came about as a result of thousands of hours worth research and experiments. This data should be free to access online, convinced Geoghegan-Quinn. She underlined the need to open library doors and eliminate online pay-wall barriers.

The commissioner pointed out that barriers to scholarly papers are falling in different parts of the world. Consequently, 50 per cent of research outputs published in 2011 in almost 40 countries are now made freely and openly available. This is good and encouraging news, indeed. Countries, institutions and researchers are embracing open access. Open access movemnet is achieving remarkable success. The EU Commission for Research and Innovation through its open access policy works to ensure research funded by the commission is publicly available and accessible. Source