A/HRC/28/57 79. Open licensing can have a particularly profound impact on the dissemination of scholarly knowledge. Science is a process of discovery, collecting and synthesizing evidence and evolving models of the world. That process relies on being able to access, evaluate and criticize the primary evidence, usually recorded in scientific publications, which, like any other original text, are eligible for copyright protection. For-profit academic journals and publishers often prohibit author-researchers from making their own material accessible over the Internet, in order to maximize subscription fees. The prevailing restricted-access dissemination model limits the ability to share published scientific knowledge, inhibiting the emergence of a truly global and collaborative scientific community. 80. Libraries negotiating subscription fees with publishers face an unequal bargaining situation; they are obliged to pay high prices, or forego providing researchers and students with the resources needed for their work. The burden of journal subscription fees is becoming unsustainable even at some of the world’s best-resourced universities.35 In some developing countries, the subscription fee to a single database may exceed the total annual budget of a university library. Students, citizens and professional scientists at less wealthy institutions are denied access to the frontiers of scientific progress. 81. Scientific authors have a moral interest in being able to participate in and contribute to the global scientific enterprise, and to be acknowledged for their contribution as widely as possible. Exclusive subscription models for scientific dissemination thus hinder rather than advance those moral interests. As authors are rarely paid for their contributions, exclusive access to those works promotes the material interests of publishers, but not those of authors. 82. Open access publishing is emerging as a significant alternative model for disseminating scientific knowledge.36 Relying on Creative Commons licences and digital distribution to make academic articles available to anyone over the Internet, it has already become an important part of mainstream academic journal publishing. To fund open access journals, some initiatives have established a publication fee that is paid by the author or the author’s employer or funder. In some countries, institutions have pledged grants to cover such author charges. In some cases, to encourage wider participation by researchers from low-and middle-income countries, reductions or waivers in publication fees have been instituted.37 83. Increasingly, academic institutions, research foundations and governments are accelerating the transition by making open access publication the default approach to scientific and government publications. Recently, some government funders have started requiring publicly funded research to be made publicly accessible; many countries are considering similar steps.38 84. A newer initiative for open educational resources makes openly licensed educational materials available online, free for students and teachers to copy, adapt or translate. Open educational resources are increasingly recognized as holding great potential to expand the 35 36 37 38 Faculty Advisory Council, “Memorandum on Journal Pricing: Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot be Sustained”, Harvard Library, 17 April 2012. Available from http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do? keyword=k77982&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup143448. Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, 22 October 2003. Available from http://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration. For example, the Public Library of Sciences. More information available from www.plos.org/newsroom/viewpoints/global-participation-initiative. See the Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (http://roarmap.eprints.org/, accessed on 4 December 2014). 17