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Adjournment debate on Thursday, 15 December 2005, in the House of Commons, led by Lord Willis of Knaresborough. The answering member was Barry Gardiner.

Scientific Publications: Free for all?

Westminster Hall debate on a motion for the adjournment on the Science and Technology Select Committee reports on scientific publications [Relevant documents: Tenth and Fourteenth Reports of the Science and Technology Committee, Session 2003–04, HC 399 and HC 1200, and the responses thereto, Third Special Report, Session 2004–05, HC 249.] On resuming—

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
440 c501-48WH 
Session
2005-06
Department
Department of Trade and Industry
Chamber / Committee
Westminster Hall
Related items
Proceeding contributions
Evan Harris | 440 c511WH (Link to this contribution) : The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. It is a strange world that we live in, in which wh...
Ian Gibson | 440 c511WH (Link to this contribution) : I shall come to that point later.
Show all contributions (75)
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c508-10WH (Link to this contribution) : Perhaps the Minister, who is shaking his head, will come up with some superb ideas before the end ...
Ian Gibson | 440 c510-1WH (Link to this contribution) It is a pleasure to be speaking under your chairmanship, Mrs. Dean; I hope that you will keep me in ...
Ian Gibson | 440 c512WH (Link to this contribution) : I absolutely agree. Peer review is acknowledged to be the best way for people to find out whether ...
Brian Iddon | 440 c511-2WH (Link to this contribution) : On that very point, is it not important that if scientific information, or any other information, ...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c502-3WH (Link to this contribution) : I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. I echo everything that he said. I hope that my r...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c503-5WH (Link to this contribution) : Well, they come for free; unlike in Oxford, where nothing is free. The report, which was publishe...
Brian Iddon | 440 c505WH (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government's response was highly coloured by the previous Off...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c505WH (Link to this contribution) : I am grateful for that remark. It is quite clear that the Department of Trade and Industry was som...
Bob Spink | 440 c505WH (Link to this contribution) : While the hon. Gentleman is talking about the Government's response to the inquiry, would he care ...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c505-8WH (Link to this contribution) : Having got into the whole subject late, and having read the evidence that has been made available,...
Evan Harris | 440 c508WH (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend accept that in those circumstances, provided that there was a shift to author pa...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c508WH (Link to this contribution) : One of the confusing things about the Government's two responses to the original report and the Co...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c501WH (Link to this contribution) I welcome the opportunity to debate the Science and Technology Committee's 10th report of session 20...
Bob Spink | 440 c501-2WH (Link to this contribution) I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his position as Chairman of this important Committee. Can he pu...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c548WH (Link to this contribution) : I am not in any position to start writing blank cheques. However, if RCUK were to arrive at that p...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c548WH (Link to this contribution) : If RCUK agrees, as part of its next funding round, to support author pays with grants, will the Go...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c548WH (Link to this contribution) : I did not catch the second part of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c548WH (Link to this contribution) : As there are four minutes remaining, could I ask the Minister to respond to my earlier question ab...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c546-8WH (Link to this contribution) : Of course I recognise the discrepancy between the two modes of publishing and the VAT levied on ea...
Brian Iddon | 440 c546WH (Link to this contribution) : Does my hon. Friend the Minister accept that it is difficult to establish a level playing field be...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c543-6WH (Link to this contribution) : I will be addressing those points. As I have said, the archiving and preservation of scientific i...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c543WH (Link to this contribution) : If the Minister is saying that the Government are happy for there to be individual institutional r...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c542-3WH (Link to this contribution) : The hon. Gentleman has a low estimation of how desperate some people are to get in to print. In th...
Evan Harris | 440 c542WH (Link to this contribution) : On the same basis, does the Minister accept that there would be no market for any journal that had...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c542WH (Link to this contribution) : I do not wish to challenge the hon. Gentleman. I sought to clarify what I understood to be the pos...
Evan Harris | 440 c541-2WH (Link to this contribution) : The Minister was right to try to clarify the position of the Royal Society of Chemistry, but it wo...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c541WH (Link to this contribution) : I fear that I am being led into a system of Copernican epicycles, whereby we try to correct the pr...
Barry Gardiner | 440 c539-41WH (Link to this contribution) : This afternoon has taken me back 25 years or more to a seminar on the philosophy of science, which...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c541WH (Link to this contribution) : Does the Minister accept that an important part of overseas development aid might be to do exactly...
Charles Hendry | 440 c536-8WH (Link to this contribution) : As my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey) pointed out, this is a UK success story. We ...
Charles Hendry | 440 c538-9WH (Link to this contribution) : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I understand what he says. The most eff...
Ian Gibson | 440 c538WH (Link to this contribution) : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that people who want things published do not want rubbish to be pub...
Ian Gibson | 440 c533WH (Link to this contribution) : Does the hon. Gentleman think that people who peer review should be paid for doing so? They are no...
Evan Harris | 440 c533WH (Link to this contribution) : Absolutely. I say gently to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough that there i...
Charles Hendry | 440 c535-6WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said in his opening remarks that he had...
Evan Harris | 440 c533-5WH (Link to this contribution) : I do not want to dodge the issue, but that is a very interesting question. There is an argument fo...
Brian Iddon | 440 c525-7WH (Link to this contribution) : That is not true. I will refer to the reasons why in a moment. To advance their careers, academic...
Evan Harris | 440 c527WH (Link to this contribution) : I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman was just making about the potentially high cost, un...
Brian Iddon | 440 c527-9WH (Link to this contribution) : It would if that approach were universal, but if some journals charged a submission charge and oth...
Speaker | 440 c529WH (Link to this contribution) (in the Chair): Dr. Brian Iddon—sorry, Dr. Evan Harris; there are too many doctors around here.
Evan Harris | 440 c529WH (Link to this contribution) I hate to disagree with you as soon as I rise to my feet, Mrs. Dean—it is a pleasure to welcome you ...
Evan Harris | 440 c529-31WH (Link to this contribution) : Norwich, North; it is important to get that distinction right. In his service to the Committee, th...
Evan Harris | 440 c531-3WH (Link to this contribution) : The hon. Gentleman is right, and I did not mean to imply anything untoward. The interests of those...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c531WH (Link to this contribution) : The first point is that I felt I was giving the views not only of the publishers, but of members o...
Brian Iddon | 440 c533WH (Link to this contribution) : Will the hon. Gentleman admit that this is not just a matter of producing high-quality papers? Tod...
Evan Harris | 440 c520WH (Link to this contribution) : The hon. Gentleman talks about the title. Can I ask him whether he has seen the question mark at t...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c520WH (Link to this contribution) : I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for accepting the point that the publishing of scientific...
Ian Gibson | 440 c521WH (Link to this contribution) : What does the hon. Gentleman think about the RCUK decision on publicly funded research?
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c522WH (Link to this contribution) : That decision was for RCUK to take, but I have great concerns about it, not only because wanting t...
Ian Gibson | 440 c520WH (Link to this contribution) : Under the current system, authors must pay for certain parts of a paper, for example, if it contai...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c520-1WH (Link to this contribution) : It certainly can be expensive to publish a paper. However, I do not want a system that transfers t...
Ian Gibson | 440 c525WH (Link to this contribution) : I am glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned Professor Katritzky. I knew him quite well and we used...
Brian Iddon | 440 c524-5WH (Link to this contribution) : My hon. Friend is trying to get one up on me, because Nature is one of the highest-impact journals...
Ian Gibson | 440 c524WH (Link to this contribution) : For the record, I published in Nature after I had become an MP. How does that rate in the citation...
Brian Iddon | 440 c522-3WH (Link to this contribution) First, I congratulate you on being elevated to the Chairmen's Panel, Mrs. Dean. It is a pleasure it ...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c516-7WH (Link to this contribution) I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in the debate. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Kn...
Ian Gibson | 440 c517WH (Link to this contribution) : Will the hon. Gentleman give his interpretation of the events referred to by the hon. Member for H...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c517WH (Link to this contribution) : I am not sure that I understand the intervention, so I shall continue with my remarks and hope tha...
Lord Willis of Knaresborough | 440 c517WH (Link to this contribution) : Perhaps I could just help with regard to the question from the hon. Member for Norwich, North. The...
Ian Gibson | 440 c514-6WH (Link to this contribution) : As I was saying, there is no problem with acknowledging that prestige journals are very important....
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c519-20WH (Link to this contribution) : I do not assume that, but I assume that author pays is less likely to involve peer review than the...
Evan Harris | 440 c518WH (Link to this contribution) : I am a little confused by the term ““Government research””. Does the hon. Gentleman mean publicly ...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c517-8WH (Link to this contribution) : On that basis, the hon. Gentleman is rapidly moving the debate towards a consensus, because I agre...
Evan Harris | 440 c519WH (Link to this contribution) : The hon. Gentleman contrasts the current model, which he calls the peer review model, with the aut...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c519WH (Link to this contribution) : It means Research Councils UK research, not specifically departmental research. Furthermore, one ...
Ian Gibson | 440 c513WH (Link to this contribution) : Yes, that happens, but not to the extent that we would wish. In interacting with the developing wo...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c513WH (Link to this contribution) : I am surprised to hear that the Royal Society of Chemistry has made such remarks. I have been told...
Ian Gibson | 440 c512WH (Link to this contribution) : I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I suspect that most people do not understand wha...
Lord Vaizey of Didcot | 440 c512WH (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) raised a conundrum. The difficulty is tha...
Subjects
Access Competition Developing countries Archives Libraries Prices Publishing Magazine press Teachers Research Science
Link
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