{"word_count": 278, "character_count": 2066}
May 14, 2014As organizations committed to the principle that access to informationadvances discovery, accelerates innovation and improves education, weendorse the policies and practices that enable Open Access -immediate, barrier free access to and reuse of scholarly articles.Policies that promote Open Access are increasingly being adopted worldwide by research funders, academic institutions and nationalgovernments in order to improve the use and value of scholarlyresearch. We fully support such policies and the dual avenues forimplementing them: open access repositories and open access journals.These policies play an important role in creating an environment whereour collective investments in research can be maximized for thebenefit of the public, and for society at large.Many policies have employed the use of embargo periods - delayedaccess to research articles for a short period of time to help protectpublishers’ subscription revenue as they shift to new business models.We consider the use of embargo periods as an acceptable transitionalmechanism to help facilitate a wholesale shift towards Open Access.However, embargo periods dilute the benefits of open access policiesand we believe that, if they are adopted, they should be no more than6 months for the life and physical sciences, 12 months for socialsciences and humanities.  We further believe that mechanisms forreducing - or eliminating - embargo periods should be included in anyOpen Access policy.Any delay in the open availability of research articles curtailsscientific progress and stifles innovation, and places unnecessaryconstraints in delivering the benefits of research back to the public.SignatoriesCOAR: Confederation of Open Access RepositoriesEIFL: Electronic Information for LibrariesLIBER: Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Associationof European Research LibrariesNational Science Library, Chinese Academy of SciencesOpenAIRE: Open Access Infrastructure for Research in EuropeSPARC: Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources CoalitionSource: Liblicense