The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), a publicly funded body which negotiates and secures access to electronic information for the UK's academia, has joined forces with Knowledge Exchange and SPARC Europe to lobby for new policy on access to scientific information.

A petition from the three organisations, which work closely with publishers and librarians in academia, is calling for open access to research that has EC related funding to be made available online soon after publication.

The petition is also calling on the European Commission to set out European wide policy on the development on digital repositories for scientific information. A central part of the petition is calling for the recommendations of the Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publications Markets of Europe to be implemented. The report came out a year ago in January 2006. 

"Over the past three years there has been significant progress in improving access to publicly funded research," said Rachel Bruce, JISC Director of Information Environment. "This progress will be strengthened by the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission's study." 

Information professionals, researchers and members of the information industry are being called upon to sign the petition, which can be done so from this link.