Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by The British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies
1. This submission has been approved by the Executive Committee of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES), a learned society of over 650 members. It was compiled by Professor Stephen Hutchings, President of BASEES.
2. BASEES is broadly in favour of the move towards Open Access Publishing. The research produced by its members has relevance well beyond the confines of the academy, dealing, as it does, with a region of considerable strategic importance in matters of foreign policy, diplomacy, security and economic development, and BASEES is keen that its full potential to benefit policy makers be realised.
3. Nonetheless, we have a number of major concerns about the way that the government is implementing its policy on Open Access, and we believe that the consequence of the policy have not been properly thought through.
4. First, the very outward-looking nature of the best of the research generated by BASEES members means that much of it is published in international journals that are not bound by UK Open Access policy. Unless other countries move in close step with the UK in implementing Open Access procedures, our researchers will be placed at a serious disadvantage with respect to their international peers, and to UK academics for whom publication in international outlets is less of an issue.
5. Secondly, it has become clear that the amount of money made available to Universities by Research Councils UK (RCUK) to cover the Author Processing Charges (APCs) required from 2013 onwards in order for journals to publish RCUK-funded research under the prestigious “Gold Access” route will be woefully inadequate. For example, one large University which employs at least 15 of our members publishes around 6,000 journal articles per year in total. That university’s proposed APC block allocation is likely to cover the cost of just 500 articles via the “Gold Access” route. This will mean that it, and other universities, will be obliged to select which of the 6,000 total be earmarked for “Gold Access” funding. Not only does such a process run counter to academic freedom, but it also raises the possibility of preferential treatment being accorded to the more “lucrative” STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) subjects over the arts and humanities, and to senior researchers over postgraduates and early-career researchers, who may not remain with their present institutions for long.
6. Moreover, as a learned society with an overwhelmingly humanities and social science base, BASEES remains equally worried about the alternative “Green Access” route to Open Access, whereby journals make articles published under the existing regime freely available after a period of embargo. There are two highly respected journals in our field which are affiliated with BASEES: Europe-Asia Studies, and Slavonica. Like other area studies journals, these will face uncertainty under the 12-month embargo periods which RCUK seeks to impose for Green Access publication (though we note that, somewhat confusingly, the government has indicated that it may be willing to consider 24-month embargo periods). As with so much else connected to Open Access, the policy seems to have been constructed with a bias towards the STEM subjects, in which research remains current for much shorter periods than in the humanities and social sciences, where three or four years or longer is the norm, and which therefore operate with a very different business model. BASEES is as a result caught between ensuring stability for its two affiliated journals which may suffer if the current RCUK position eventually prevails, and defending the interests of its members who may lose out in relation to “Gold Access” peers if the two-to-three year embargo periods preferred by the journals remain in force.
7. BASEES has profound concerns, too, about the government’s determination to attach the requirement of a CC-BY licence to the Gold Access route. As far as we can see, this does not apply to Green Access, though we have been unable to identify anything in the relevant documents that explicitly rules this out. We have consulted the publishers of the BASEES-affiliated journals, seeking clarification, but have not yet received a reply. Nonetheless, there is no question that for Gold Access, the licence is required by the research councils and authors will have no choice in this matter, despite growing disquiet within BASEES, and the broader academic community. The licence will allow “data mining” for commercial as well as scientific purposes, which could result in excerpts from research being used out of context and in ways not endorsed, or even opposed, by authors. There is some minimal requirement for acknowledgement of the author, but it seems to be much less stringent than in the case of standards forms of citation used in academic articles.
8. Finally, we would wish to draw the attention of BIS to the continuing prominence in the arts and humanities of the monograph and edited book as a preferred (and vital) means of disseminating research. The government seems to be working towards an insistence on Open Access Publishing for the Research Excellence Framework exercise after REF 2014 (expected to take place in 2020). It has given no clear lead on how monographs and edited volumes, whose business model is different again, can ever be made Open Access-compliant. If this is to happen, it will require a long and complex transition period which needs to start very soon.
9. In light of these and other concerns, BASEES strongly urges the government seriously to rethink its Open Access implementation strategy and timetable. If it does so, it will have our full and committed support.
3 February 2013