Archive by category | Policy

US to lift ban on blood donations from gay men

The US Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to end a lifetime ban on blood donation for men who have sex with men that has been in place since 1983. The current ban covered all men who have had sex with men at any time since 1977, and was intended to prevent the spread of the HIV virus but was seen by gay-rights activists as discriminatory.  Read more

Gates Foundation announces world’s strongest policy on open access research

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced the world’s strongest policy in support of open research and open data. If strictly enforced, it would prevent Gates-funded researchers from publishing in well-known journals such as Nature and Science.  Read more

More than half of 2007-2012 research articles now free to read

More than half of 2007-2012 research articles now free to read

More than half of all peer-reviewed research articles published from 2007 to 2012 are now free to download somewhere on the Internet, according to a report produced for the European Commission, published today. That is a step up from the situation last year, when only one year in the three-year report period  – 2011 – reached the 50% free mark. But the report also underlines how availability dips in the most recent year, because many papers are only made free after a delay.  Read more