Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Universities UK

Introduction

1. Universities UK is broadly supportive of the direction of travel on open access following the publication of the Finch report and the response from the UK government, Research Councils UK (RCUK), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and others in 2012.

2. Open access in research is important for a number of reasons, including realising the significant potential benefits for the profile and impact of UK research and ensuring an efficient and effective publication system. Open access also has great potential to drive innovation in academic publishing, which will, in turn, drive efficiency. While early open access experiments simply replicated operational and revenue models from subscription journals, more recent innovations in peer review, web and search technologies, text-mining and workflow tools promise to reduce publishing and associated library costs in these areas. For example, the co-founder of the Public Library of Science PLoS ONE open access journal, now the biggest journal in the world, has set up Peer-J where, for a lifetime membership of $99, academics can use a journal infrastructure wherein they both contribute to and benefit from peer review activity.

3. Given the complexity in the system, the transition to open access as envisaged by Finch might take some years. We recognise the concerns that have been raised over the costs of transition to the “gold” model. We would therefore emphasise the need to monitor very closely trends in article processing charges (APCs) the impact on journal pricing and on institutional costs across the sector, and to understand the impact of the Finch proposals more generally. This will need an agreed and consistent approach across all stakeholders and interests. The Open Access Implementation Group, Chaired by Professor Martin Hall, is well placed to do this and is considering this question and additional evidence requirements to support the open access transition. Additional government support for the transition has been welcome and we would urge that the funding requirements to support this transition period, across the whole higher education sector, be kept under close review.

The Costs and Management of APCs

4. Although open access publishing and institutional repositories have been evolving as an alternative publishing model for a number of years, the Finch report set out a road map for how a more fundamental transition to open access can be achieved. The government’s support for Finch and associated changes to funders’ policies will lead to significant change. However, given the complexity of the academic publishing market any transition to open access will inevitably take some years, and will be characterised by a mixed economy. Universities will need to maintain subscriptions to journals (to enable their researchers and students to access the world’s literature), put in place arrangements to fund APCs to support open access publishing (in part covered by block grants from funders such as RCUK and the Wellcome Trust), and support their repository (to ensure their research has maximum impact).

5. While consensus supports open access, there are costs to all scholarly communication, which have to be borne somewhere in the system. The Finch report estimated, based on certain assumptions, that the additional costs during a transition could amount to around £50—£60 million per year,1 of which £38 million were APCs, although thereafter it would be cheaper and more effective. Given the diversity of the sector, the way in which institutions will respond and the costs of transition would vary. In a welcome move, the UK government has allocated £10 million this year to universities to cover part of this cost. As noted above, we recognise the concerns that have been raised over the costs of transition, and would emphasise the need to monitor the impact on institutional costs across the whole sector, and on subscription journal pricing, very closely and to understand the impact of the Finch proposals more generally.

6. Universities should work with funders to define a set of metrics that they would wish to have monitored to ensure the transition is both making progress and is cost-effective in the medium to long term. Data from these metrics would ensure that there was a clear and shared understanding of any ongoing requirements to support transition, but any monitoring will need to be based on a clear consensus on the approach and metrics used. Jisc, RCUK and the Wellcome Trust are collaborating to collect data on APCs to ensure that the national agreements with publishers, brokered by Jisc, are informed by accurate data on costs incurred by universities.

7. Because the UK produces more high quality journal articles per capita than many other countries, it may pay higher aggregate APCs, though the overall cost-benefit for the UK is likely to remain positive when compared with the current position. A number of other countries are moving towards an open access model, for example there are strong moves in both USA and Germany. It will be important to monitor open access developments and costs worldwide and UNESCO has already developed a tool to support this.2 Where possible, open access policies should be coordinated through government or relevant international organisations. One issue which will need to be addressed at international level in the short term is the publication of authors’ work resulting from international collaborations.

8. Another issue relates to the management of APCs and ensuring that there is a consistent and transparent approach in institutions to ensure that academics wanting to publish are able to do so. All universities in receipt of research council or Wellcome Trust funds to cover APCs will need to put in place appropriate arrangements for their management. Research funders will have specific requirements for accountability and monitoring the spend associated with these funds, partly to keep track of compliance with their open access mandates. From April 2013, universities in receipt of research council grants will be expected to have a publication fund, through which the money can be managed and on which reports can be made to funders. Support and guidance in this area has been developed and services are emerging that enable universities collectively to manage APC transactions. Jisc will pilot a service during 2013. Again, as part of the monitoring of the implementation of the Finch proposals, it will be important to consider the management and payment of APCs.

Green Open Access Post-Finch

9. Green open access will continue to be an important part of any future scholarly communication system and will need a supportive policy environment. Indeed, most institutions have a repository that can be used to showcase and share all of its open access publications, as well as doctoral theses and other material. Increasingly, such repositories are also used to support research management and reporting.

10. Currently, most research papers that are open access go through the green route.3 For universities, it is a very cost-effective approach, although some publishers are concerned that, if taken too far, it might threaten their revenues. To manage this risk, many publishers impose “embargoes”, so that the deposit of an open access repository version is time restricted. Embargo periods will vary between publishers and disciplines. Embargoes are sometimes conceptualised in terms of the “half life” of a journal article—the period during which half of all potential readers can be expected to access a given article.4 The version information and licence conditions on manuscripts published in this way are often unclear.

11. The Finch report was sensitive to the balance between the aims of, on the one hand, increasing access, and on the other of avoiding undue risks to the sustainability of subscription-based journals. The report proposed that where insufficient dedicated funding is available to meet the costs of open access publishing, it would be unreasonable to require embargo periods of less than 12 months. Although shorter embargo periods for publicly funded research will help secure the public interest, we would support the introduction of some flexibility in this area. We would also, however, endorse the government’s assertion that it would be difficult to argue that embargo periods of longer than two years were serving the public interest. We would encourage a move ultimately to a standard minimum six-month embargo period without restrictions on non-commercial reuse.

Impact of Open Access on Scientific and Publishing Communities

12. One of the main concerns has been the potential impact of open access on learned and professional societies, particularly where the proceeds of subscription publishing operations contributes to the work of their communities. This was a concern recognised by Universities UK in our 2006 position statement on open access. Monitoring the position of learned and professional societies will be important, but as with any changing business environment, the open access landscape also provides these publishers with opportunities to innovate and develop new business models.

Licensing and Reuse

13. The opportunities for reuse of materials is an important benefit of open access. Text and data mining has huge potential for research, particularly in the medical sciences, and the wider economy. We welcome the government’s work, following the Hargreaves review, to reform copyright so as to realise this potential. Although concerns have been raised in certain discipline areas, we would strongly support the intention that outputs should be in a form that enables search, reuse, text and data mining. We believe that this should be done on a CC-BY basis wherever possible. Where well evidenced and legitimate concerns exist there may be a case for non- commercial or other licence options.

About Universities UK

14. Universities UK is the representative organisation for the UK’s universities. Founded in 1918, its mission is to be the definitive voice for all universities in the UK, providing high quality leadership and support to its members to promote a successful and diverse higher education sector. With 133 members and offices in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh, it promotes the strength and success of UK universities nationally and internationally.

12 April 2013