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RSC launches £1 million Gold for Gold as Open Access transition begins

The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced a groundbreaking £1 million initiative to support British researchers as they begin the transition to Gold Open Access (OA).

‘Gold for Gold’ is an innovative experiment to support the funder led evolution to Gold OA, by recognising institutes that subscribe to RSC Gold, a premium collection of 37 international journals, databases and magazines offering online access to all published material.

UK institutes who are RSC Gold customers will shortly receive credit equal to the subscription paid, to enabling their researchers, who are being asked to publish Open Access but often do not yet have funding to pay for it directly, to make their paper available via Open Science, the RSC’s Gold OA option.

Dr James Milne, RSC Managing Director, Publishing, said: “The RSC is delighted to announce this innovative experiment to help researchers make their articles Open Access during a period when funding to support this model is still relatively unclear.”

The number of UK institutes subscribing to RSC Gold is now approaching 50, having doubled in the last two months. Dr Milne commented: “We anticipate this initiative will equate to the RSC donating more than £1 million pounds worth of Gold Open Access article processing fees to the UK research community by the end of the year”.

Earlier this week the Government confirmed its support for migrating towards Gold Open Access by making publicly funded scientific research available for anyone to read for free, accepting recommendations in a report on OA by Dame Janet Finch.

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) also published their revised policy on Open Access, requiring researchers to publish in OA compliant journals. ‘Gold for Gold’ seeks to support researchers until the block grants from RCUK are distributed next April, which, once established are intended to fund Gold OA.

Since 2007 all RSC journals have carried the option to make articles Open Access through Open Science – the Gold OA model.

Lesley Gray, Journals Co-ordinator Scheme Manager from the University of Cambridge, said: “This initiative by the RSC is welcomed, and will serve to promote Open Access publishing to researchers.”

Lorraine Estelle, Chief Executive of JISC congratulated the RSC on launching ‘Gold for Gold’ which “demonstrates the Society’s engagement with the chemical science community and recent Open Access developments”.

EBSCO in deal with Elsevier to enhance e-book medical collection available via eBooks

An agreement between EBSCO Publishing and Elsevier has significantly enhanced the e-book medical collection available through eBooks on EBSCOhost®. The agreement adds 965 health science titles to EBSCO’s medical e-book collection with over 580 of the titles representing coverage from 2010 to the present.

eBooks on EBSCOhost offers a variety of e-book and audiobook collections for medical research, containing high-quality titles ensuring that researchers find the right material for any of their healthcare needs. The titles from Elsevier, a leading publisher of health and science information, further expands the variety of medical specialties covered in the medical collection including topical areas such as: Pediatrics, Pharmacy, Nursing, Anesthesia, Anatomy/Physiology, Cardiology, Orthopedics, Oncology, Veterinary Medicine, Allied Health, Dentistry, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Surgery, Radiology and others.

The Elsevier titles are available in Subject Sets which provide convenient, prepackaged sets of titles chosen to meet libraries’ needs for new content on popular, in-demand topics. The titles are also available via selection through EBSCOhost® Collection Manager (ECM). ECM can be used to search or browse for e-books and audiobooks by title, author, publisher and more or make selections from the Subject Sets or Featured Collections created by EBSCO’s collection development experts. ECM can also help libraries create and manage lists of titles they want to expose to patron drive acquisition (PDA), manage deposits and determine which ownership models to apply to the various e-books and audiobooks in their collection.

STM responds to EC communications on scientific information and ERA

STM read with interest the two Communications (on the European Research Area and on access to scientific information) and the Commission Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific information, published on 17 July 2012.

STM is pleased to see that the European Commission:

• recognizes the importance of the European academic and professional publishing market(European publishers account for almost 50% of articles published worldwide) and their rapidadaption to the digital age
• realizes that the economic and societal potential of better access to scientific information canonly be realized if budgets are sufficient
• respects intellectual property rights in the major challenge to broadly implement Open Accessin ERA
• and concludes that access to publicly-funded information has to be wide, fair, sustainable and easy

STM welcomes the efforts of the Commission on research data and applauds the recognition that theprocess of selecting, reviewing and publishing articles has a cost.

STM is pleased to see that the Commission maintains eligibility for Gold open access publishing costs in Horizon2020 and even considers providing reimbursement after end of the grant agreement,previously a major practical stumbling block.

STM is disappointed that the Commission decided not to follow the pragmatic lead of the UK Finch Access Group in preferring Gold to Green Open Access and in opting for minimum Green embargo periods of not less than 12 months when APCs cannot be paid.

CEO of STM, Michael Mabe commented: “Despite data from the PEER project indicating how impractical, time- and labour-consuming a functioning Green OA universe would be, and numerous submissions about the problems inherent in shorter embargos for many disciplines, the Commission has failed to recognise one size does not fit all, retaining short embargo times of six months for all scientific and technical areas.”

While STM welcomes explanatory footnote 36 of the Communication on Scientific Information on exceptional embargo times of twelve months being established under the model grant agreement for Horizon 2020, especially in regard to social science and humanities, many scientific disciplines will also have problems.

STM is looking forward to work with the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament and the Members States to overcome these areas of concern and to help to achieve a smooth and successful transition to a sustainable OA environment.

Thomson Reuters launches latest version of transfer pricing solution

ONESOURCE solution to help global companies comply with tightening transfer pricing regulations

Thomson Reuters today announced the latest version of ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing, the first comprehensive software and content suite to address the entire transfer pricing workflow within a corporation.

ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing helps global organizations automate and control data collection, policy creation and documentation, and ongoing financial monitoring to ensure compliance. This is particularly important in light of  recent moves by governments globally to tighten transfer pricing regulations and strengthen enforcement to generate billions of dollars in incremental revenues each year.

New and updated components that are instrumental to this end-to-end solution are:

  • Transfer Pricing Analyzer (TPA) that provides users with a single, up-to-date view of transfer pricing obligations across key jurisdictions around the world, and the ability to apply such rules in the context of a single company resident in one of the jurisdictions covered.
  • Updated data collection features in the Documenter and Benchmark web-based solutions that enable corporations to analyze the arm’s-length nature of tangible, intangible, and service transactions.

“While companies may have sound transfer pricing documentation in place, research shows that few have all the necessary components to ensure compliance with confidence,” said Joe Harpaz, managing director of the corporate division within the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters. “And with global enforcement on the rise, there is a critical need for an end-to-end transfer pricing solution. We are excited to provide a solution consisting of both software and content that can help multi-national companies achieve compliance with confidence from start to finish.”

In recent Thomson Reuters’ polls of 70 tax executives and controllers, nearly half do not have a standard process in place for transfer pricing planning, pricing and documentation. The ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing solution helps global companies:

  • Identify and collect transfer pricing information and data by:
    • Automating the process for collecting financial data from various global systems and other sources.
    • Creating custom information requests to gather necessary company specific and functional information.
    • Compiling global transaction information and relevant supporting files in a centralized location.
  • Design and implement inter-company procedures and policy by:
    • Documenting and managing transfer pricing policies.
    • Capturing policies for global affiliates.
  • Monitor, analyze and fine-tune inter-company policies and pricing by:
    • Reducing or eliminating out-of-period adjustments.
    • Reviewing inter-company policy compliance with ease.
    • Making timely adjustments to ensure appropriate pricing throughout the year.
  • Prepare required documentation by:
    • Accessing guidance and information regarding local regulations and a step-by-step process to complete configurable transfer pricing documentation.
    • Leveraging prior year work that can easily be updated for future years.
    • Searching and analyzing the more than 1.2 million private and public company records worldwide, as well as intangible agreements, with sophisticated filtering and reviewing functionality to efficiently identify comparables for use in transfer pricing analyses.

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins journals win 17 Apex awards for excellence in publishing

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW), part of Wolters Kluwer Health, is pleased to announce that 11 LWW published journals have won 17 highly regarded awards in the 24th annual APEX Awards for Publication Excellence Competition. Notable achievements were awarded to LWW-published journals, Emergency Medicine News taking home for the third consecutive year the Grand Award for Excellence, which recognizes outstanding work in the category of Magapapers & Newspapers; and Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, which won in the multimedia category for its journal iPad app edition and website.

APEX Awards are based on excellence in graphic design, editorial content and the ability to achieve overall communications excellence. Grand Awards honor the outstanding works in each main category, while Awards of Excellence recognize exceptional entries in each of the individual subcategories. Of the more than 3,400 entries in the competition, just 100 Grand Award Winners were selected.

“Each year, the APEX awards underscore the significant contributions LWW-published journals continue to make across our core medical, nursing and healthcare specialties,” said Karen Abramson, President and CEO, Wolters Kluwer Health Medical Research. “Congratulations to all the honored editorial and publishing teams for their commitment to publishing excellence. I’d like to also acknowledge the outstanding achievement of the Emergency Medicine News team for winning the Apex Grand Prize for the third consecutive year, and the exciting digital win forPlastic and Reconstructive Surgery’s iPad app edition.”

The 17 awards for LWW-published journals include:

—     AJN: American Journal of Nursing

  • Award of Excellence – Cover Design and Illustration; November 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – Blog Writing; “Off the Chart

—     Emergency Medicine News

  • Grand Award – Magapapers & Newspapers, For Profit; September 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – Editorial and Advocacy Writing, “Raiders of the Lost Admit”; August 2011 issue

—     Hearing Journal, The

  • Award of Excellence – Cover Design and Illustration; November 2011 issue

—     Nephrology Times

  • Award of Excellence – Magapapers & Newspaper Writing; January 2011 issue

—     Neurology Today, the official publication of the American Academy of Neurology

  • Award of Excellence – News Writing, “For Medicaid Patients Only, Particularly Children, the Neurologist Might Not Be In”; July 21, 2011 issue
  • Award of Excellence – One-of-a Kind-Custom-Published Publications, January 19, 2012 issue

—     Nursing made Incredibly Easy!

  • Award of Excellence – Print, Over 32 Pages; January 19, 2012 issue

—     Nursing Management

  • Award of Excellence – Special Purpose Writing, “2012 Guide to Patient Safety”; December 2011 issue

—     The Nurse Practitioner

  • Award of Excellence – Magazine and Journal Writing; September 2011 issue

—      Oncology Times

  • Award of Excellence – Websites, “Oncology-Times.com”
  • Award of Excellence – Blogs, “Practice Matters”
  • Award of Excellence – Regular Departments and Columns, “Musings of a Cancer Doctor”

—      OR Nurse 2011

  • Award of Excellence – Health & Medical Writing, “Remembering 9-11”; September 2011 issue

—      Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery, the official publication of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons

  • Award of Excellence – Websites, “PRSJournal.com”
  • Award of Excellence – Multimedia Applications, iPad app

The Apex Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition is open to communicators in corporate, nonprofit and independent settings. Sponsored by the Editors of Writer’s Web Watch, an e-newsletter on print, Web, electronic and social media, and the Writing That Works Archives, a resource for business communicators, the APEX Awards program has been recognizing publishing excellence since 1988.

Huge transition costs will mean a bumpy ride to reach Open Access, says RSC Chief Executive

The Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry has welcomed the government’s Open Access proposals announced yesterday, but said the estimated £50 million annual transition costs would mean a bumpy ride ahead for UK researchers and institutions.

Dr Robert Parker said the RSC had always supported a move towards GoldOpen Access, but warned that money diverted from the already frozen science budget could hit research projects.

He added: “No new money is being found to help with the significant transition costs to the new Open Access publishing model, so the RSC is ready to work with the government to work out how this hole can be plugged. We hope the £50 million to fund the transition will not come from research budgets.

“If it does, the cost of Gold Open Access could lead to less UK research and fewer papers being published by UK researchers. The evolution to Open Access without additional funding could prove problematic, especially for the most productive research institutions. This could mean a bumpy ride as we begin the journey towards full Open Access, particularly while we wait for other nations to decide whether to follow suit.”

The Research Councils UK (RCUK) announced its new Open Access policy yesterday. It stated that all peer reviewed papers that result from research wholly or partially funded by the councils must be published in journals that are compliant with RCUK policy on Open Access. They will provide block grants to Institutions, to fund the Author Processing Charges (APCs) required under the new system. There is no clarity yet on the level of funding RCUK will provide, nor how it will be distributed.

Dr Parker stressed that all RSC journals will be compliant with RCUK requirements for Gold Open Access, ensuring the best research from the UK can continue to be published in the RSC’s leading international journals.

But he added: “We do have concern with the shorter six-month embargo period the RCUK has adopted, for journals that do not offer a Gold Open Access option. This does not align with the Government’s recommendation of an up to 12 month embargo period for science, technology and engineering publications.”

IEEE Announces Next Steps in its Open Access Strategy

Dr. Michael Pecht, Director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering, Named Editor-in-Chief of IEEE’s First Interdisciplinary, Rapid-Publication Journal

17 July 2012 – IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, is continuing to develop its strategy on open access publishing. The IEEE Board of Directors recently approved the creation of a rapid-publication, open access megajournal spanning all IEEE fields of interest. Several other topical open access journals are also planned as part of this phase of the rollout.

“The new journals are the next steps in the implementation of our open access strategy announced in 2011,” said Anthony Durniak, IEEE Staff Executive for Publications. “A hybrid open access option also has been available to authors publishing in any of IEEE’s journals since 2011,” said Durniak.

Dr. Michael Pecht, founder and director of the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering at the University of Maryland, has been named the journal’s first editor-in-chief. A Fellow of IEEE, ASME, and SAE, Pecht was formerly editor of IEEE Transactions on Reliability for eight years as well as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology. He also has served on the editorial advisory board of IEEE Spectrum magazine. Pecht, who has written over 20 books and 400 technical articles, will spend the next several months assembling an editorial advisory board and developing guidelines and procedures for prospective authors to follow.

The new megajournal, the hybrid option, and other forthcoming specialized open access titles are part of IEEE’s efforts to provide authors with alternatives to traditional publishing.

Elsevier Announces 2011 Journal Impact Factor Highlights

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the highlights of its journal Impact Factor performance in 2011. According to the 2011 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) published by Thomson Reuters, Elsevier saw 58% of its journal Impact Factors increase from 2010 to 2011, compared to 54% for non-Elsevier journals.

Elsevier journals top the rankings in 57 subject categories. Nearly 40% of Elsevier’s 1,600 journals in the JCR are in the top 10 of their subject category, with 188 journals ranked in the top 3. Five Elsevier journals have seen a decade of continuous Impact Factor increases: Journal of Ethnopharmacology; Journal of Materials Processing Technology; Carbon; Electrochemistry Communications; Renewable Energy.

Martin Tanke, Managing Director Journals at Elsevier, said “We value these results as they are an acknowledgement of the excellent performance by the authors, reviewers and editors we work with. In addition, we believe these outcomes are the result of our continuous focus on quality. It remains important however to note that the Impact Factor is just one perspective on a journal’s quality and influence. We will continue to invest time and resources into quality enhancing initiatives such as increased support and enhancement of the peer review process to speed up review times, and further innovations on the publishing process to deliver faster publication for our authors.”

All journals in The Lancet family reached their highest Impact Factor yet. The Lancet rose from 33.633 to 38.278, remaining the second-highest ranked journal in the Medicine, General & Internal category. The Lancet Infectious Diseases and The Lancet Neurology retained their number one rankings in their respective categories, while The Lancet Oncology saw its Impact Factor soar from 14.470 to 17.764.

Cell, the flagship journal of Cell Press, an Elsevier imprint, saw its Impact Factor remain stable at 32.403 and continues to be the top primary research journal in the Cell Biology and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology subject categories. Among Cell Press’s more recent suite of journal launches, Cell Stem Cell (Impact Factor 25.421) had the highest percentage growth in citations in its field. More than 70% of the Trends review journals had an increased Impact Factor this year.

Of the 383 journals in the JCR that Elsevier publishes on behalf of societies, 64% saw increases in their Impact Factors. Nine of these are number one in their subject category, with four achieving that top position in 2011: PAIN (International Association for the Study of Pain); Annals of Emergency Medicine (American College of Emergency Physicians); Combustion and Flame, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry which now also ranks number one in the Pediatrics category.

The Impact Factor helps evaluate a journal’s impact compared to others in the same field by measuring the frequency with which recent articles in a journal have been cited in a particular year: the 2011 Impact Factor takes into account citations in 2011 to papers published in 2009 and 2010.

EC sets open access policy objectives under Horizon 2020 programme

Scientific data: open access to research results will boost Europe’s innovation capacity

The European Commission today outlined measures to improve access to scientific information produced in Europe. Broader and more rapid access to scientific papers and data will make it easier for researchers and businesses to build on the findings of public-funded research. This will boost Europe’s innovation capacity and give citizens quicker access to the benefits of scientific discoveries. In this way, it will give Europe a better return on its €87 billion annual investment in R&D. The measures complement the Commission’s Communication to achieve a European Research Area (ERA), also adopted today.

As a first step, the Commission will make open access to scientific publications a general principle of Horizon 2020, the EU’s Research & Innovation funding programme for 2014-2020. As of 2014, all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be accessible:

  • articles will either immediately be made accessible online by the publisher (‘Gold’ open access) – up-front publication costs can be eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission; or
  • researchers will make their articles available through an open access repository no later than six months (12 months for articles in the fields of social sciences and humanities) after publication (‘Green’ open access).

The Commission has also recommended that Member States take a similar approach to the results of research funded under their own domestic programmes. The goal is for 60% of European publicly-funded research articles to be available under open access by 2016.

The Commission will also start experimenting with open access to the data collected during publicly funded research (e.g. the numerical results of experiments), taking into account legitimate concerns related to the fundee’s commercial interests or to privacy.

84 % of respondents to a 2011 public consultation said that access to scientific literature is not optimal. Studies show that without speedy access to up-to-date scientific literature, it takes small and medium-sized enterprises up to two years longer to bring innovative products to the market. An EU-funded study showed that currently only 25% of researchers share their data openly.

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, said: “Taxpayers should not have to pay twice for scientific research and they need seamless access to raw data. We want to bring dissemination and exploitation of scientific research results to the next level. Data is the new oil.”

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, European Commissioner for Research and Innovation, said: “We must give taxpayers more bang for their buck. Open access to scientific papers and data will speed up important breakthroughs by our researchers and businesses, boosting knowledge and competitiveness in Europe.”

Background

Open access gives readers free access to research results over the Internet. The Commission today adopted a Communication that sets out open access policy objectives for the research funded by the Commission through “Horizon 2020” An accompanying Commission Recommendation sets out a complete policy framework for improving access to, and preservation of, scientific information. Together these two initiatives feed into the wider context of achieving a European Research Area (see IP/12/788 and MEMO/12/564 also issued today). This builds on a 2007 Communication on scientific information in the digital age (seeIP/07/190) and on Council conclusions of that same year.

The Commission will:

  • define open access to peer-reviewed publications as the general principle in Horizon 2020, either through open access publishing (‘Gold’ open access) or self-archiving (‘Green’ open access)
  • promote open access to research data (experimental results, observations and computer-generated information etc.) and set a pilot framework in Horizon 2020, taking into account legitimate concerns in relation to privacy, commercial interests and questions related to large data volumes
  • develop and support e-infrastructures to host and share scientific information (publications and data) which are interoperable on European and global level
  • help researchers to comply with open access obligations and promote a culture of sharing.

The Digital Agenda for Europe set out an ambitious ‘open data’ policy covering the full range of information that public bodies across the European Union produce, collect or pay for. The EU’s Innovation Union flagship also explicitly backs Open Access as an essential element in realising the European Research Area (ERA). The Communication and Recommendation on scientific information complement a Communication on “A reinforced European Research Area partnership for excellence and growth’, also being adopted today, which sets out key priorities for completing the European Research Area, including the optimal circulation, access to and transfer of scientific knowledge.

The European Commission will continue to fund projects related to open access. In 2012-2013, the Commission will spend €45 million on data infrastructures andresearch on digital preservation. Funding will continue under the Horizon 2020 programme. During the same period, the Commission will support experimentation with new ways of handling scientific information (e.g. new peer-review methods and ways of measuring article impact).

See also MEMO/12/565

Oxford University Press acquires joint ownership of Journal of Surgical Case Reports

Oxford University Press (OUP) has just announced a major new acquisition that will see the publisher take joint ownership of the Journal of Surgical Case Reports (JSCR).

Editor Julien Al Shakarchi said, “The move to Oxford University Press marks a new exciting chapter for the Journal of Surgical Case Reports. With its long tradition of excellence and innovative web delivery, OUP was the natural partner for the journal. The editorial team looks forward to this new exciting partnership and to seeing the title flourish into the premier case report journal.”

OUP is to take a 50 per cent share in the title from January 2013 in a new long-term collaboration which will continue to strengthen OUP’s Medicine collection and its Open Access programme.

Michael Brown, Editorial Director of Medicine Journals, at OUP said, “There has been a significant development in Open Access publishing over the last five years, and the growth of case report journals is a distinct part of this. The Journal of Surgical Case Reports shares OUP’s aims for publishing the highest-quality content and disseminating that content as widely as possible. Case reports are a cornerstone of surgical practice, and this journal not only provides readers with an opportunity to learn through these reports, but also for quality case reports to be published and enhance the medical literature.”

Journal of Surgical Case Reports is an open access, peer-reviewed online journal that will consider any original case report that expands the field of surgery. The journal aims to publish reports showing one of the following:

  • Unexpected or unusual presentations of a disease
  • Description of a rare surgical condition
  • An unexpected event in the management of a patient
  • Description of a new surgical procedure
  • Innovation in surgery

The first issue of the Journal of Surgical Case Reports will be published by OUP from January 2013. Visit the website for more information, submission guidelines, and to sign up to receive tables of contents by email: http://jscr.oxfordjournals.org/

Springer extends free access for digital library project in Haiti

Bibliothèques sans Frontières will provide Haitian students and researchers with latest research publications in spite of structural challenges

As Haiti continues to rebuild in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, Springer Science+Business Media announced that it will extend the period of free access to its online platform, Springerlink, through 2015 to 15,000 students and researchers in the devastated country. This donation– initially set to expire in 2013 – will provide scientific content from approximately 2,000 research-level scientific journals, including French-language editions, and the state-of-the-art book series Lecture Notes in Computer Science and Lecture Notes in Mathematics.The digital library project in Haiti is being set up by Bibliothèques sans Frontières (BSF) in partnership with the State University of Haiti. In total, 23 international publishing partners support this initiative to provide immediate and easy access to electronic information resourcesThis innovative library project comes in response to the destruction of nine of Haiti’s 11 state university libraries. Students and researchers will be given free access to a vast range of content covering the latest research findings in science, technology, medicine, information technology, humanities and behavioral and social sciences.

“In spite of all the achievements made last year such as building, the installation of hardware and professional training, issues with internet access hampered the library’s ability to deliver content,” said Marine Louvigny, Programme Coordinator of Bibliothèques Sans Frontières. ”While proper internet connectivity continues to slow down our progress, these last remaining problems should be resolved over the next few weeks and we are delighted that Springer has extended its commitment to this project in light of these obstacles.”

“At Springer we want to see Haiti recover from this monumental catastrophe. We are proud to be doing our part to help by extending free access to Springer content through 31-12-2015, which dovetails with the UN Millennium goals. BSF should be highly commended for establishing this ‘pantheon’ of science in Haiti, which will be invaluable to thousands of Haitian students, teachers, doctors, researchers and other academics,” said Alan Harris, Licensing Manager Developing Country Initiatives at Springer.

Open access means a bright future for scientific research

Free access to British scientific research will give us more and cost us less than we realise

The Guardian called the recent government announcement that all UK-funded research will be open access within two years, “the most radical shakeup of academic publishing since the invention of the internet“. That’s not an exaggeration: the web will finally achieve what it was initially created for: the free exchange of research. The payoff is literally incalculable: as a rough guide, the Human Genome Project’s decision to make its results similarly open has yielded economic benefits exceeding 200 times the project’s costs. As research outputs that were previously only available to academics become available for uses we can’t even imagine yet, we can expect significant advances in medicine, education and industry.

But the news is even better than the announcement suggests. The government’s statement was in response to the Finch report, and takes at face value that report’s claim that the transition to an open-access academic ecosystem will cost £50-60m a year. In quarters where the response to the government announcement has not been enthusiastic, it has been because of the need to find this extra money from existing allocations. But these costs are hugely overstated. The true cost will likely be closer to £10m.

How did this overestimate come about? Because the Finch group was made up of members who “represented different constituencies who have legitimately different interests and different priorities”. In particular, a large proportion of the group were subscription-based publishers whose business model stands to be undermined by open access, and who had every reason to undermine the report. They did this in three ways: first, by minimising the importance of “green open access”, in which authors deposit their final drafts in public repositories with no payment to the publishers; second, by greatly over-estimating the typical costs of “gold open access”, in which the author pays an article processing charge (APC); and third, by further inflating the transition cost by including increased subscription fees.

To continue reading please click here to be taken to The Guardian 

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