Three top awards of $30,000* each will be presented in October at an Open Access Week kickoff event hosted by SPARC and the World Bank.   The winners will be those individuals or teams that have used, applied or remixed scientific research – published through Open Access – to innovate and make a difference in science, medicine, business, technology or society as a whole.

Here are some examples of potential nominations (please note that these are for illustrative purposes only and not meant to represent any actual researcher, innovative use, individual, or organization, and they do not cover all the potential innovative use cases)

• The health minister of a low income country was able to confidently and quickly change cancer treatment protocols based on an oncology research article detailing successful uses of a repurposed cancer drug published by a peer reviewed, Open Access journal, which had been translated into multiple languages by a group of retired language teachers.
• A bioinformatics team repurposes existing source codes used for searching genomic data associated with individual cancer tumors to create a new open source algorithm and web tool that can search multiple tumor types simultaneously, enabling faster and more comprehensive searches by oncologists for use in clinical treatment of cancer patients
• A climate policy expert took original figures and examples from a recent Open Access climate change research paper — correlating temperature increases with rises in ocean depth — and repurposed these findings in a policy-focused presentation at a conference of experts from 25 Asian and Oceanic countries – leading to the adoption of stricter emissions standards by several participating countries.
• A patient advocate creates a new web community for individuals with a rare genetic disorder and their families; this website curates existing and newly available open access research about causes and treatment protocols, and offers interpretative science articles and a user forum to help nonscientist readers better understand the science presented

The ASAP program is sponsored by 24 global organizations that value  the transformative impact of applying scientific research, published through Open Access, to extend the reach of science and medicine.

*For more information on the ASAP program, please visit asap.plos.org. See also the Program rules at http://asap.plos.org/nominate/rules/. Follow the ASAP Program on Twitter at #SciASAP.

The ASAP Program recognizes individuals who have used, applied or remixed scientific research to innovate and make a difference in science, medicine, business, technology or society as a whole.  Potential nominees include individuals, teams or groups of collaborators such as scientists, researchers, educators, technology leaders, entrepreneurs, policy makers, patient advocates, public health workers, and students. There are three top awards of $30,000 each.*

The ASAP Program will illuminate how the unrestricted exchange of information can advance science and medicine, and benefit society.  It also aspires to encourage a new generation of individuals to embrace the use and application of scientific research published through Open Access­.

“PLOS is delighted to collaborate with two dozen global organizations to highlight the impact that Open Access research has on science, medicine and society,” said Gary Ward, Chairman of the Board, PLOS.  “We know there are countless examples of individuals who have used Open Access research to accelerate science but these stories often go untold.  Through this program, we hope to bring them to the forefront.”

The ASAP Program will be judged by an international committee composed of distinguished leaders in multiple fields, including:

• Agnes Binagwaho, M.D., Minister of Health, Rwanda and faculty member in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School
• Helga Nowotny, President of the European Research Council (ERC) and Professor emeritus of Social Studies of Science, ETH Zurich
• Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media
• Hans Rosling, M.D., Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institute and co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder
• Harold Varmus, M.D., Co-recipient of a Nobel Prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer and the current Director of the National Cancer Institute

“The Wellcome Trust is proud to sponsor the ASAP Program, and in doing so, recognize those who have maximized the impact of scientific research published through Open Access,” said Robert Kiley, Head of Digital Services at the Wellcome Trust.  “We are eager to see real case studies that showcase the unique value of Open Access and, through these stories, inspire greater support for Open Access.”

Three top awards of $30,000 each will be presented.  The nomination period is open from May 1 to June 15, 2013.  Winners will be announced in Washington, DC in October 2013, at an Open Access Week kickoff event hosted by SPARC and the World Bank.

*For more information, including the full details of the ASAP Program, nomination process, and the Award specifics, go to asap.plos.org. For Program rules visit http://asap.plos.org/nominate/rules/.

Sponsors are the Association of College Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Co-Action Publishing, Creative Commons, the Directory of Open Access Journals, Doris Duke Charitable Trust, eLife, EIFL, Hindawi, Health Research Alliance, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Impact Story, Max Planck Society, Mendeley, Microsoft Research, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, Research Councils UK, Research Libraries UK, SPARC, SURF (Netherlands), the World Bank, and major sponsors Google, Public Library of Science, and the Wellcome Trust

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About the Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization founded to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication. PLOS engages in outreach activities that promote Open Access and innovations in the communication of research for scientists and the public. 2013 marks PLOS’s tenth year as an Open Access publisher, reaching an international audience through immediate and free availability of research on the Internet. PLOS publishes a suite of seven journals: PLOS Biology; PLOS Medicine; PLOS Genetics; PLOS Computational Biology; PLOS Pathogens; PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases; and PLOS ONE, which publishes research from more than 50 diverse scientific fields and is the largest peer-reviewed journal in the world.

About the Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. www.wellcome.ac.uk

“Elizabeth is a passionate and dynamic leader with extensive experience in publishing who fully embraces the Open Access principles that drive our mission”, said Gary Ward, Chairman of the Board, PLOS. “As PLOS enters a new phase of growth and innovation, the Board believes Elizabeth will instill new energy and focus to the organization that will help us continue to be a leading force in the transformation of research communication.”

“I am thrilled to be joining PLOS, an organization for which I have profound respect as a leading scientific publisher, Open Access advocate and technology innovator”, said Marincola. “I leave SSP in the hands of outstanding governance and management and am confident that the Society will continue to grow and prosper in the coming years.  I look forward to forging new relationships at PLOS as we strive to grow and innovate.”

Longtime CEO, Peter Jerram, and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Borostyan, will be leaving the organization effective May 10, 2013. “Since its establishment as a publisher more than ten years ago, PLOS has grown to become a self-sustaining organization with more than 170 employees.  This is a tremendous accomplishment that both PJ and Steve have been instrumental in making happen” said Ward.  “We thank PJ and Steve for their years of service to the organization.  They have done a fantastic job of guiding the organization and getting us to where we are today.  They are an important part of PLOS history.”

The Board has appointed an interim leadership team effective immediately to ensure that PLOS is able to continue to move projects and strategic initiatives forward.  Together with the existing PLOS Executive team, they will govern the organization until Marincola’s arrival.

Following the publication of the Finch report the UK government, Research Councils UK, and other funding bodies have all moved to implement policies that will increase public access to the UK’s publicly funded research. The UK Parliamentary inquiry is one part of this process. While there is broad acceptance of the desirability to move towards wider access the implementation details are controversial. PLOS supports the widening of access and the government’s position that this process should be properly funded, and believes that many implementation details can be improved.

PLOS and other organizations submitted written evidence to the Committee prior to the testimony. Visit this website for more information on the inquiry and to access both the live testimony and written evidence.

Panel members:

• Dr Cameron Neylon, Advocacy Director, Public Library of Science
• Dr Robin Jackson, Chief Executive, British Academy
• Dr Audrey McCulloch, Chief Executive, Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
• Dr Alicia Wise, Director of Universal Access, Reed Elsevier
• Dr Alma Swan, Key Perspectives Ltd; Director of European Advocacy for SPARC Scholarly Publishing
  and Academic Resources Coalition
• Professor Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor University of Salford; a member of the Finch Group; and
  Chair of the UK Open Access Implementation Group
• Professor Rick Rylance, Chair, RCUK Executive Group; and Chief Executive, AHRC
• Professor Stevan Harnad, Professor of Web Science, University of Southampton; Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada; and Professor of Psychology, McGill University, Canada

• The Directive affirms the principle that the public has a right to access the results of publicly funded research, calling on all federal agencies with annual research and development budgets of $100 million or more to provide the public with free online access to the results of that research.
• It specifically calls for research manuscripts arising from publicly funded research to be made available no later than 12 months after publication in a scientific journal.
• The Directive also provides guidance to ensure that data resulting from publicly funded research is made widely available in a timely manner.

This directive is yet another sign that Open Access principles are gaining momentum.  The Directive comes as the bipartisan Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR) is making its way through the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. The legislation was introduced in the 113^th Congress by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representatives Mike Doyle (D-PA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Kevin Yoder (R-KS).

These developments are major achievements for both open access and open government –we now need to take the next step and make open access the law of the land, not just the preference of the President. Join us in transforming research communication for the benefit of all. Please call, write or email your congressional representative and express your support for FASTR.

”The US has a substantial interest in maximizing the impact and utility of the research it funds by enabling a wide range of reuses of the peer-reviewed literature that reports the results of such research, including by enabling computational analysis by state-of-art technology.

The Federal Government funds basic and applied research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries that result from the research, if shared and effectively disseminated, will advance science and improve the lives and welfare of people in the US and around the world.  The internet makes it possible for this information to be promptly available to every scientist, physician, educator and citizens at home, in school, or in a library”

Increasing access to research outputs delivers benefits for the economy, for medical patients, for innovators and for the general public. In Tuesday’s State of the Union Speech President Barack Obama referenced the Human Genome Project, which has generated both good science and $141 dollars returned for every dollar spent. In addition, one of President Obama’s distinguished guests was Jack Andraka, a high school sophomore, who won the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his creation of a new method to detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. His discovery was made possible by using the research outputs he could access freely online.

We are seeing a proliferation of increased access, from new journals to new guidelines and legislation. In the UK, PLOS strongly supports the efforts of the UK Government and Research Councils to increase access to publicly funded research. We applaud the development and implementation of policies in Ireland, Denmark, Argentina, Australia and in the European Union. We stand firmly alongside any organization or initiative that attempts to eliminate unnecessary barriers to the immediate availability, access and use of research, and we look forward to working with them in the journey towards full Open Access.

We invite you to join us in the PLOS mission to lead a transformation in research communication for the benefit of all. We urge you to call, write or email your congressional representative and express your support for FASTR. Click here to read the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act.

The history and benefits of Open Access remain a largely untold story. In 2000, to address a lack of access to the majority of scientific research published behind paywalls, our founders shook up the academic science establishment with an Open Access petition.  Two years later, incorporated as the non-profit  Public Library of Science, PLOS created an Open Access publishing model by launching its first journal, PLOS Biology, followed by six other journals over the decade that followed. Today, working as advocates, publishers and innovators, in tandem with a vibrant and growing community of supporters, we continue our founders’ mission to transform research communication.

During our tenth anniversary year, PLOS will partner with media organizations to demonstrate the many ways in which biomedical research published on an open access platform can affect peoples’ lives for the better. With monthly online dialogues, we’ll invite leading advocates in conversation to look ahead at the possible future of open access scientific discovery and publishing.

Additional offerings during our tenth anniversary year will include programs to increase adoption of Open Access, deliver more innovations in publishing, and expand peer-review, including pre-and post-publication. Our vision is to help the research community build a truly open, distributed, and reusable public repository of ideas and data. Here are details of what we’re working on for 2013. Stay tuned to the Official PLOS Blog, Twitter, and Facebook for the latest news.

• Reinventing Science:  Stories of Open Discovery: This multimedia series, consisting of feature articles, research summaries and podcasts, will profile researchers who are tapping into the knowledge of Open Access journals and collections to help accelerate their own research and enhance collaboration with peers around the globe. The series will be produced in collaboration with an online news and broadcast radio partner and will debut in early spring.
• PLOS Conversations on Open Access: Hosted by Cameron Neylon, this regular podcast will round-up the latest happenings and discussions about Open Access, open research, and open data. Look for the series to debut in early spring on the PLOS Blog and social media sites.
• More About “HowOpenIsIt?”: The conversation has moved from “is it open?” to “HowOpenIsIt?”, and to continue this discussion, PLOS will unveil new resources and tools that help authors, readers, and funders understand the benefits of Open Access and how to apply components of the HowOpenIsIt? Open Access Spectrum at the article and journal level.
• Article-Level Metrics: Through ongoing forums, live and virtual events, and other activities, PLOS will continue to make advances in article-level metrics and other mechanisms for broadening peer review to include post-publication impact indicators, along with better tools for assessing organizing, and reusing research ideas and data.
• The PLOS Journals: In 2013, PLOS Medicine turns its attention to non-communicable diseases and the burden of disease they cause, while PLOS ONE continues its growth as the world’s largest peer reviewed journal.  In October, PLOS Biology celebrates the journal’s tenth birthday with special activities and events to be announced — look for details in PLOS Biologue. The community journals, PLOS Pathogens, PLOS NTDs, PLOS Genetics and PLOS Computational Biology will continue to publish the research of an international roster of authors, working, as do all our journals,  with the help of dedicated volunteer editors and peer reviewers who are the backbone of these publications. Look for announcements of new collection launches in PLOS journals throughout the year.
• Journal Enhancements: PLOS is increasing user interaction and readability, such as the recently announced redesign of the PLOS journal interface, and investing in enhanced tools for article authoring and submission.

PLOS is grateful to the authors, readers, reviewers, editors, advisors, librarians, funders, and collaborators who have supported our mission as an advocate, publisher, and innovator. We look forward to continuing to shape the future of scientific research communications.

Keep up with these tenth anniversary programs and new ones to come on the PLOS home page and the Official PLOS Blog.

On the eve of our tenth anniversary, we’re pleased to announce that the redesign of all PLOS journals is now live. The three goals of this initiative were to:

• Ensure that readers can quickly assess the relevance and importance of an article through a figure browser and highly visible Article-Level Metrics
• Improve site navigation to help users discover content more easily
• Launch a flexible platform from which to build out future innovations

This refresh offers users more effective ways to access and read content, updates the overall appearance of the sites and harmonizes them with our new PLOS look announced earlier this year.

Many of you will have noticed some ongoing enhancements to the journals this year, for example figures and Article-Level Metrics (ALM). You can expect similar developments to continue to roll out starting in early 2013 and into the future as we continue to adapt to meet user needs.

After extensive research into how researchers find and use content, we’ve focused our attention on refining and improving our article layout and functionality so that we can help you to locate relevant articles more quickly and enrich your reading experience. Here’s a short video, and a brief rundown of the new user features that you can see from today:

• More prominent figures – featured throughout articles and search so that you can quickly determine if an article is relevant
• Enhanced Discovery – Search now reflects our new expanded taxonomy of subject categories
• Metrics Signposts – sub-sets of ALM data, provide at-a-glance measures of article reach and impact
• Custom Saved Search – log in, enter your keywords and save, then receive new content that precisely meets your interests via email
• Author data – clear presentation of affiliations/attribution for each author as well as grouped by institution
• Abstract and Figure viewer – providing new ways for you to get around and find what matters
• Faster navigation – persistent (so you never get lost) and floating (follows you down the page)
• Clearer Tabs – easier to see and use, providing enriched article information

PLOS is taking advantage of the most powerful web technologies to improve our reader experience, promote Open Access and encourage conversation around the latest research to accelerate progress in science and medicine and lead a transformation in research communication.

We’re proud to have self-funded this project using revenue generated from our publishing business. It’s of prime importance for us as a non-profit that we give back to the researchers who publish with us and what better way to say thank you than with an improved journal experience.

Here’s what Kristen Ratan, PLOS’ Chief Products and Publications Officer, had to say about this project. “PLOS’ top priority is meeting the needs of our researcher community and the new sites focus on accessing and assessing the article content and data as quickly as possible. The enhanced publishing platform will also allow us to quickly deploy new functionality and take our reader experience to a whole new level.  We look forward to continuing to roll out improvements over the coming year and enriching our content still further”.

We welcome your feedback on our redesign in any one of a number of ways:  comment on this post; Twitter; Facebook; or just plain old fashioned email.

PLOS applauds the call for passage of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) in the recently released report by the Brookings Institution.  The report, “Building an Innovation-Based Economy”, outlines policy recommendations for the U.S. economy.   If signed into law, FRPAA would require open public access to research funded by eleven U.S. federal government agencies. Here in an excerpt from the report:

“The expectation of a wide dissemination of public research has inspired a bill that is currently being considered in Congress. We should support the Federal Research Public Access Act (HR4004, S2096) that mandates public dissemination of federally funded research within six months of publication (for agencies with extramural funding exceeding $100 million). The bill proposes an exclusion of classified research, books from which authors receive a royalty, and patentable discoveries. If some accommodation can be made to compensate for revenue lost by for-profit publishers of academic journals, we believe that this bill is consistent with the goal of pursuing widespread dissemination of the knowledge funded with public monies.”

Earlier this year more than 41,000 scientists, Open Access advocates, and the general public signed a petition urging the White House to support this expansion of Open Access. The Brookings Institution report is yet another welcome voice.

Government

In July, three concurrent announcements–Research Councils UK – RCUK; the government response to the Finch Report, and Higher Education Funding Council for England – HEFCE–established a framework for introducing Open Access to the UK over a short period of time with implementation starting in April 2013.  Also in July, the European Commission (EC) published its own set of documents on Open Access, which further raises the possibility that Open Access will become a prevalent mode of dissemination of scientific research, and widened the set of potential publishing models. In the U.S., Open Access advocates are eagerly awaiting a response from the White House after successfully garnering more than 27,000 signatures on a petition that urges expanding Open Access to research funded by all U.S. federal science agencies.

Funders

The World Bank announced an Open Access policy that went into effect in July in  which its data and publications will be licensed under Creative Commons copyrights and made free to the public. In June, the Wellcome Trust announced that it will more strongly enforce its Open Access policy. Noncompliance could result in final grant payments being withheld. Last month, the Budapest Open Access Initiative issued a new set of recommendations, which reaffirmed and expanded on the original Budapest Declaration:

Publishers

This summer also ushered in additional Open Access publishers that will contribute to our important cause. eLife and PeerJ are among those now accepting submissions. PLOS welcomes all new and existing publishing efforts that make research Open Access. Several other publishers are moving toward Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license licensing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., announced revised licensing arrangements for proprietary journals published under the Wiley Open Access program. The journals will adopt the CC-BY, which allows commercial use of published articles. The Wiley Open Access portfolio also includes journals published with society partners, many of which will similarly transfer to the CC-BY license. A similar  development comes from Nature Publishing Group: Scientific Reports offers authors the option of using a CC-BY license. Scientific Reports published its 457^th article on June 14, its first birthday, making it Nature Publishing Group’s fastest-growing journal. Springer also shifted this year.

Academic Institutions

The Faculty Advisory Council at Harvard University announced that it can no longer afford to maintain its subscriptions to academic journals. The announcement offers advice on what staff can do to alleviate the problem:

Consider submitting articles to Open Access journals, or to ones that have reasonable, sustainable subscription costs; move prestige to Open Access.If on the editorial board of a journal involved, determine if it can be published as Open Access material, or independently from publishers that practice pricing described above. If not, consider resigning.

Purdue University passed a recommendation in 2012 for all faculty to follow Harvard University’s policy with similar licenses, requirements, and options. The recommendation includes modifying Purdue epubs, the existing university repository, as an Open Access repository.

In May, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) became the latest academic institution to adopt an Open Access policy for scholarly publications.

The steady progress toward Open Access is encouraging but our work is not yet done. Let’s continue this momentum and transform research communication together.