APPENDIX 78
Memorandum from the International Association
of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM)
Founded in 1968, the International Association
of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) is a global
organisation of over 100 scholarly and professional publishers.
STM's membership includes both commercial and non-commercial publishers
of all sizes from the UK and Europe, North and South America,
Asia and Australia. Its headquarters are in The Hague.
STM welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence
to the Select Committee on Science and Technology's inquiry into
scientific publications. We have had the benefit of seeing the
detailed submission already made by The Publishers Association
and warmly endorse the points made. Meanwhile, we hope that the
following additional comments will be helpful to the Committee.
The present international system of STM publishing
has developed over centuries, in tandem with science itself, and
the needs of the scientific and medical worlds. It is estimated
that there are currently over 2,000 STM publishers worldwide,
who between them publish over 1.2 million articles annually via
16,000 peer-reviewed scholarly and learned journals. As new scientific
disciplines emerge, new STM journals are produced to publish their
new research findings, so in times—like the present day—of
rapidly expanding and developing research there are more and more
STM journals with an increasing number of articles in each one.
The journals each compete for the best and most topical articles
from leading scientific authors, so STM publishing is a highly
competitive market, both internationally and in the UK. This is
a healthy environment for science itself, and for individual researchers,
who have a wide choice of publishing outlets for their work. The
UK's Office of Fair Trading confirmed this in the results of its
September 2002 review, concluding that "the overall market
is fragmented, with the top six publishers accounting for just
37% of rated journals and 44% of articles . . . for now it would
not be appropriate for the OFT to intervene in the market."
One feature of such an open, free market is
innovation. In our Statement of November 2003 (attached to this
submission), we pointed out that STM publishers in recent years
"have leveraged emerging technologies and
invested hundreds of millions of dollars to make more scientific
research information available to more people than ever before.
In the process, we have developed—and continue to develop—innovative
and accessible business models to broaden information access."
Examples, such as consortia licensing and pay-per-view,
are set out in the Statement.
Many STM publishers are investing in the provision
of long-term archival access to this vital body of research, increasingly
via electronic archives, cross-referenced and cross-linked for
scholarly use.
STM publishers also play a crucial role in maintaining
and supervising the independence and academic quality of the articles
published, via the peer-review system. No article is published
unless it has been peer-reviewed by the editorial board of the
relevant journal, or another reviewer commissioned by them, which
ensures that not only academic quality, but also accuracy and
objectivity are maintained, so that publication in the journal
concerned is independently validated and authenticated to the
world at large. These are thus crucial scientific hallmarks, which
STM publishers have been instrumental in developing over many
generations.
STM publishers act as neutral guardians of the
peer-review system (and, additionally, provide an essential filter
for any illegality such as copyright infringement, or libel).
By providing truly independent funding for the entire publishing
system, STM publishers avoid any perception of bias in the acceptance
of papers, which could raise serious issues of academic independence.
STM welcomes new and innovative publishing models,
including open access, but any new business model must be tested
by the standards set out above for scientific publishing. Time
should be allowed for the necessary testing to take place in the
rigours of a free-market environment, that is free of any distorting
form of state preference or subsidy. As we said in our November
Statement:
"Abandoning the diversity of proven publishing
models in favour of a single, untested model could have disastrous
consequences for the scientific research community. It could seriously
jeopardise the flow of information today, as well as continuity
of the archival record of scientific progress that is to important
to our society tomorrow."
February 2004
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