EU makes medicine research grants conditional on open access

[Effi]

http://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonl...en-access?topic=223&eid=356051934&bid=1505619

The European Union is offering $350 million in grants for developing personalized medicine next year—but with "open science" strings attached.
...
The research boss also wants to take sharing further and engage the population at large. At the launch ceremony for this round of funding, he recognized the merits of the Age of Enlightenment, when natural philosophers such as Benjamin Franklin, Goethe and Voltaire openly shared their thinking across borders—but they did it only within a charmed circle of their contemporaries. As science developed through subsequent centuries, Moedas said, "the public remained an audience to be instructed, rather than an active participant in the scientific debate."

 

[Cheesus]

Excellent! Public money should buy public information. I think the UK recently made this commitment too (though we also made a commitment not to allow academics to discredit government policy with public funds )

 

[Paralee]

Sorry for being so literal, but what exactly is "personalized medicine"? And will they use mice or humans?

 

[Cheesus]

Sorry for being so literal, but what exactly is "personalized medicine"? And will they use mice or humans?

Certain physical characteristics, namely genetics, mean that certain people respond well to treatments whereas others do not. At the minute we just try different treatments until something sticks. Personalised medicine will aim to identify which treatments work for which individuals, so we can know in advance whether a treatment is likely to work or not.

 

[Bob]

And they seem serious about it:

And to reinforce the trend towards sharing, the EU is from now on making open data the default for all Horizon 2020 projects. "For all projects funded by these calls, we will expect the data generated to be open access," he said. In recognition of some of the challenges presented by this approach, he added that he is currently working on potential revisions to EU copyright law, so as to provide a research exception across all member states that will offer a predictable legal framework for text and data mining.

 

[snowathlete]

http://www.appliedclinicaltrialsonl...en-access?topic=223&eid=356051934&bid=1505619

Makes me want to change my vote. Nah, not really, but in seriousness, it's good to see a big push for transparency of medical research.

 

[JaimeS]

I've been feeling compelled into maniacal laughter often when I read the medical news of late.

But seriously, folks -- it's nice to see some change.

 

[AndyPR]

Along the same lines

Care to learn more about 400-foot tsunamis on Mars? Now you can, after Nasa announced it is making all its publicly funded research available online for free.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-research-available-free-online-a7200011.html

 

[Paralee]

Pardon my suspicious mind, but if that's true, I'm wondering just where that transparency stops....or does it include its citizens privacy, too? Not trying to be a Maytag, I just have trust issues with TPTB.

 

[Paralee]

I'm sorry, I've turned into a thread stopper.