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According to the Guardian, The Wellcome Trust, one of the world's largest funders of science is to joining the campaign aimed at fighting the stranglehold that academic journals have on research papers.

Nearly 9,000 researchers have already signed up to a boycott of journals that restrict free sharing as part of a campaign dubbed the "academic spring" by supporters due to its potential for revolutionising the spread of knowledge.

Sir Mark Walport, the director of Wellcome Trust, said that his organisation is launching a high calibre scientific journal called eLife to compete directly with publications such as Nature and Science. Unlike traditional journals, however, which cost British universities hundreds of millions of pounds a year to access, articles in eLife will be free to view on the web as soon as they are published.

He also said that the Wellcome Trust, which spends more than ÂŁ600m on scientific research a year, would soon adopt a more robust approach with the scientists it funds, to ensure that results are freely available to the public within six months of first publication.

• The Guardian
• The Wellcome Trust