Today Science Commons, a subdivision of the larger Creative Commons non-profit organization, launched a short video explaining what Science Commons stands for. Science Commons, headed by John Wilbanks, is a project that tries to improve scientific communication and research by making a plea to lower access barriers and to free locked-up research results. They want to ‘accelerate the research cycle’ by creating and promoting a new cooperative scientific infrastructure. From their website:

“Many scientists today work in relative isolation, left to follow blind alleys and duplicate existing research. Data are balkanized — trapped behind firewalls, locked up by contracts or lost in databases that can’t be accessed or integrated. Materials are hard to get — universities are overwhelmed with transfer requests that ought to be routine, while grant cycles pass and windows of opportunity close. It’s not uncommon for research sponsors to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in critically important efforts like drug discovery, only to see them fail.”

The video is directed by director Jesse Dylan, the director of the Emmy-award winning “Yes We Can” Barack Obama campaign video:

[youtube=http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=hZAcTNFzF-s]