Author: Danny Kingsley, Visiting Fellow, Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University

In December 2001, a small but lively meeting in Budapest, Hungary, launched a whole new international movement. The resulting Budapest Open Access Initiative opened with the words: “An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good”. This was the first definition of open access and referred to harnessing the internet to make scientific research openly available, without a subscription. It was a “statement of principle, a statement of strategy, and a statement of commitment”. More than two decades later, the open access movement has broadened beyond simply research articles. It now incorporates research…