I don't understand why academics are still clinging to the dead tree version of journals. Not only are they inaccessible to the public, who paid for the research, by the time the print version comes out the research can be up to 2 years old.

Accountability is fair enough, but the priority here is accountability to government rules, not to the public. It's crazy.

chainsmoker, the gummint pays, so they call the tune. seems fair to me.

Danny, how would this issue relate to GRDC funding towards plant breeding. Farmers pay around 60-70% of the total GRDC budget through a compulsory levy on our gross value of grain sold and government pays 30-40% in a capped share arrangement.
The Federal government was paying for the unprofitable pre-breeding done at universities and GRDC funding was paying for further research and development.
However, governments are rapidly withdrawing from their funding and previously encouraged investors to plant breeding by legislating plant breeder rights and patent arrangements to secure intellectual property.
GRDC now pays for pre-breeding but farmers do not own the intellectual property we pay for, nor do we get any benefit from pre-breeding that is not available to our international competitors.
Farmers currently pay a GRDC levy, pay significantly for the seed we purchase and pay an end-point royalty when we harvest seed from the seed we planted. It is expected that we will be paying even more for R&D if GM crops are introduced.
What are our rights to access or own the research we pay for?