Funders call on institutions to disclose open-access costs

Research institutions must reveal how much they pay in open-access publication fees, the research funders’ association Science Europe has said.

All institutions should participate in the Open APC initiative, which collects data about the fees paid for open-access journal articles by universities and research institutions, Science Europe said in a recommendation published today.

The Open APC initiative releases the data it collects about the costs of open-access publishing under an open database license. Contributing to that data “will help create a more transparent cost structure in the open-access publication market and stimulate competition,” Science Europe said.