About Richard Poynder

For over a decade Richard Poynder has been observing and reporting on the evolution of the Open Access (OA) movement. During that time he has been variously praised, criticised and threatened.

Leading OA advocate Stevan Harnad has described Richard as the “chronicler, conscience, and gadfly laureate” of the OA movement.

Commenting on one of his articles on FriendFeed, on the other hand, a critic remarked: “Printed it off, skimmed it and stuck it into the shredder.”

The divergent views on Richard’s work are perhaps a consequence of its impartiality. In 2008, in a joint statement (with Stevan Harnad) in support of Richard’s journalism, the de facto leader of the OA movement Peter Suber commented: “He is widely respected for his independence, even-handedness, analysis, careful interviews, and detailed research.”

Richard’s work has been widely cited, including in a 2011 report on peer review in scientific publications by the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

In his time Richard has contributed to wide range of specialist, national and international publications, including the Wall Street Journal Europe, Financial Times, Guardian and Telegraph.

He has also edited and co-authored two books: Hidden Value (1999) and Caught in a Web, Intellectual Property in Cyberspace (2000) and contributed to radio programmes.

Much of Richard’s current writing appears on his blog Open & Shut. There he publishes regular interviews with OA advocates, essays on OA, plus on-going commentary on the movement.

He has also published a series of interviews (The Basement Interviews) with leading advocates of other free and open movements, including with Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Jay Rosen and Joe Trippi [pdf].

Contact Richard Poynder on +44 191 645 2189