Comment from David Louis
David LouisSupportAcademic
Summary: An academic representative argues that prohibiting the use of federal funds for publication and conference costs will hinder scientific progress and research dissemination. They contend that because journals are increasingly charging for Open Access, government grants must cover these costs to prevent academic departments from bearing the financial burden.
Any prohibition on publication and scientific conference costs will effectively kill the dissemination of research results and thus kill scientific progress. Because of the mandate for publishing scientific results as Open Access, journals are now forced to charge higher publication costs. If grants do not cover these costs, then academic departments would have to do so. Unfortunately, the many pressures on healthcare spending have now diminished department margins to a level at which is it increasingly not possible to support academic costs like publication charges and conference attendance. On the other hand, if a scientific study is being supported by government funds, then surely the government wants to have that information disseminated for the greatest public good; to do so requires covering publication and conference costs.