Princeton University will stop researchers from handing over their copyright to journal publishers, as part of a new open access policy at the university. Currently, researchers at Princeton and elsewhere 'give away' their work to journal publishers, and then have to buy back the journals in which their work gets published. It is a system that enriches publishers to the detriment of open scholarship.

Princeton's policy aims to broaden the reach of their scholarly communication and to encourage publishers to adjust contracts that require copyright handover as a condition of publication. However, if a journal refuses to accept an article without copyright handover, an academic at Princeton can seek exemption from the policy.

The Princeton move has sparked stories in the New York Times and on The Conversation, an independent source of information, analysis and commentary from the university and research sector.

It is a timely move, coming in advance of Open Access Week, (October 24-30, 2011) when a range of advocacy events, activities and a blizzard of publicity try to get the issues of open access and open scholarship front and centre in researchers' minds.