But the biggest hurdle to surmount may be the cultural biases built into fields, where a person’s career can depend on getting papers into the very best journals, which are not traditionally the open access ones. A new biomedical research journal, eLife, being launched by top research organizations in three countries - the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Wellcome Trust, and the Max Planck Society - is an effort to change that, by creating a peer-reviewed journal that is on par with the most elite publications and that is also freely accessible.
“I just know that a lot of the very top biomedical scientists will continue to do what they do, until we can deliver something they see as a viable alternative,’’ said Randy Schekman, editor-in-chief of eLife and a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Read on.
