Scientific articles written by Dutch researchers must be accessible for everyone to read free of charge from 2016, says junior education minister Sander Dekker.

If the shift to open access publication does not happen quickly enough, the government will consider implementing it by law, the Volkskrant reported on Saturday.

Research which has been funded by the public purse should also be accessible to the public free of charge, the minister says. Some scientists also say open access would reduce the influence of scientific publishers who are looking for spectacular breakthroughs.

Benefits

However, Hans Clevers, president of the Dutch scientific academy KNAW, warned that some open access magazines and websites are little more than ‘dumping grounds’ for research that can’t be placed anywhere else.

‘If you want to end the powerful position held by top research magazines, you will have to ensure research all over the world is based on open access,’ he said.

Without this, Dutch researchers would be disadvantaged because they would not benefit from the cv boost an article in magazines like Nature brings.