Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
1. Executive Summary
Many learned societies depend heavily on revenue from journal publishing to support their other worthy activities. Although the IMA is all in favour of wider dissemination of mathematical research, in particular to industry, and a greater appreciation for what mathematics can do, the UK’s open access policy has created large financial uncertainties for the future of the UK learned societies and UK academia.
2. The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA)
The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications is the UK’s learned and professional society for mathematics and its applications. The IMA exists to support the advancement of mathematical knowledge and its applications and to promote and enhance mathematical culture in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, for the public good. It is a charity incorporated by Royal Charter.
3. Factual Information
3.1 51% of the income of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications comes from publication of its seven journals (2013 budget). If this income stream were to reduce by a factor of two, for example, the IMA would be forced to close in four years or invent a radically new business model.
3.2 If it had to downscale or close, the IMA would then downscale or cease to perform the following valuable services for the UK: operation of the Department for Education’s Initial teacher training scholarship scheme in Mathematics; contribution to initiatives like the Mathematics component of the HE-STEM programme; compilation of information on the impact of mathematical research, like our Mathematics Matters series; operation of the highly used MathsCareers website; operation of the Chartered Mathematician/Chartered Mathematics Teacher/Chartered Scientist [for mathematicians] professional registers for the public good; operation of our seven journals that fulfill a valuable service to the international community and to the UK; our small grants scheme that supports a range of research activities; our education grants that support innovations in mathematics education; our prizes that recognize excellence; our linking of academia and industry, for example by our Professional Affairs committee and our Employers Forum; our engagement with policy, from EPSRC and HEFCE to DfE, BIS, other government departments, and the Houses of Parliament.
3.3 EPSRC’s open access mandate requires publications of research supported by EPSRC to be gold or green open access for submissions from 1 April 2013, with the green embargo period at most six months. The IMA is not currently willing to reduce our embargo period for green open access from 12 to six months, because of the potential drop in subscriptions, and EPSRC is not willing to increase the allowed embargo period to 12 months, in contrast to AHRC and ESRC. Thus to remain open to submissions from authors supported by EPSRC, our principal UK authorship, the IMA has decided to make all it’s journals hybrid gold.
3.4 If satisfactory arrangements for UK researchers to be able to pay article processing charges (APCs) are not made, APCs will in many institutions squeeze UK university libraries’ subscriptions budgets. This will lead to a combination of reduction in submissions to journals and subscriptions being cut. A consequence of both is reduction in the income to the learned societies.
3.5 In mathematics, there is the additional problem that mathematics journal publications may cost more than those in some other disciplines, yet article processing charges are currently fairly uniform over disciplines (we are considering a mid-range APC of £1750). The higher cost of mathematics articles can be attributed to a culture of high standards and of high density of content and perhaps to specialized, and so small, readership. It is reflected in the higher ratio of subscription costs to numbers of articles published. For example, an online subscription to the IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics (IMAJAM) for 2012 cost £10.33 per article (£8.77 if two other titles also taken), whereas online subscription to the American Physical Society’s Physical Review journals for 2012 cost $1.339 per article (http://librarians.aps.org/institutional.html) (for tier 4: “large research institutions”; the cost is even lower for smaller institutions). Thus if a significant fraction of journal submissions (from worldwide) become open access and publishers operate a flat APC and reduce subscription costs in proportion to the fraction of open access articles published, mathematics’ journal incomes will reduce.
3.6 An alternative scenario is that publishers will set different APCs for different journals. Then financial pressures on University APC budgets will create difficulties for authors wishing to submit to journals with higher APCs. This could significantly reduce submissions to mathematics journals and hence jeopardize their viability. The revenue per article from IMAJAM for example is currently £3899, so if we were to put up the APC for this journal to match, we fear UK submissions to the journal would drop drastically.
3.7 The UK punches well above its weight in Mathematics (as in much of Science), as has been documented in the recent report on the Economic Benefits of Mathematical Sciences Research, for example. It would be a mistake to jeopardize its position by an insufficiently well resourced policy shift.
4. Recommendations
4.1 Implement the Finch Review’s recommended action ‘iv.—Keep under review the position of learned societies that rely on publishing revenues to fund their core activities, the speed with which they can change their publishing business models, and the impact on the services they provide to the UK research community’. (p.8)
4.2 Extend the embargo period for the green open access route permitted by EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, NERC and STFC from six to 12 months.
4.3 Provide more substantial transitional funding for UK universities to pay APCs.
4.4 Make very clear the mandates on open access publishing from RCUK, HEFCE and devolved counterparts, and review them regularly as the situation evolves.
5 February 2013