Could the best way to make money from science be to give it away for free?

Billionaire Larry Tanenbaum has announced a major donation that will not just fund neuroscience, but support a new way of doing it

With the help of Tanenbaum's gift of 20 million Canadian dollars (12million) the 'Neuro', the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, is setting up an experiment in experimentation, an Open Science Initiative with the express purpose of finding out the best way to realise the potential of scientific research.

It is hard to be against 'open science'. Openness - the public sharing and challenging of knowledge - is held up as one of the foundational ideals of science. During the cold war, Niels Bohr was not alone in arguing that this principle should apply to politics too: 'The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness'. For much of its history, science has been ahead of the curve when it comes to openness. However, as access to online information has exploded, scientific research, much of which is hidden behind paywalls, looked like a closed shop.