10 days. 900 signatures. Supporters in over 70 countries. Publishers unlocked over 8,000 research articles with us.
We started our petition to show support for the scientists who are urgently fighting to find answers amidst a horrendous global health disaster. Publishers kept locks on many of those answers until our petition urged them to take action.
Keeping science behind paywalls during a global health emergency is morally criminal.
Scientists want their science to be free. Scientists work for humanity and they never put a price on their knowledge. We asked publishers to do the same during this crisis, and they have answered our plea.
Wiley unlocks 2,161 scientific studies (Feb 18 2020).
@WileyInResearch: We've also currently removed the paywall on all articles with ‘coronavirus’ in the title, abstract or keyword on https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com regardless of relevance to the outbreak - just to be sure. These articles will show on our site as 'Free to read'. If you're researching COVID-19 and you still find a relevant paywalled article on our site please DM us.
Elsevier's executives waking up to the crisis (Feb 20 2020).
@Chris_Capot: Director of Communications at Elsevier is looking into why countless breaking-release studies sat behind paywalls until we personally urged their release: I have alerted our ScienceDirect experts. I won’t hear back until tomorrow. When I find out more, I’ll email you again.
We'll keep you updated on the next action Elsevier takes to assist scientists in the fight against the virus.