Full Return on Investment: the case for open access to scientific data and information

The case for free and open access to taxpayer-funded research seems clear and the case logically extends to effective use and repurposing of data. Within the practice of science, generally, there is also a clear case for free and open access to knowledge resources. (This raises serious questions about proprietary controls on science in the private sector and public condoning of such controls also raises serious questions.)

Restrictions on access to knowledge may impede or prevent awareness of null results -- or “failures” -- creating the possibility that research or public policy are misdirected or that public investments may be wastefully replicated.

There are, in addition, strong arguments from the perspective of human rights as well as utilitarian arguments based in notions of civic responsibility, information literacy and public education.

Polemically, there is a convincing ethical spectrum of public goods that runs from human health / pharmacology through environment and conservation, natural history, agriculture and science and education, more generally. The case for restricted access to knowledge is necessarily very limited and narrowly drawn.

Free and open access and use should be a default setting – restrictions on access should require special – and well-specified -- justification.