Jisc review aims to revitalise discussion on open access research in UK, says Anna Vernon
This June marked 20 years since the academic community first agreed a set of open access (OA) research publishing principles.
Known as the Bethesda Statement, it acknowledged the pivotal role of free and open research for the creation and dissemination of new ideas and knowledge for the public benefit.
Driven by funder policy and institutional demand for a publishing ecosystem that is affordable, fair and transparent, the UK has been a leader in the transition to OA. But two decades on, overall progress in transitioning hybrid journals to fully OA and the elimination of paywalls has been slow.
We know the UK higher education institutions Jisc represents in sector negotiations with publishers are frustrated with the pace of progress. They are also keen to ensure that open access not only removes paywalls but allows everyone to participate in open scholarship.
It’s time to take stock and decide what happens next. To kickstart this process, Jisc has launched a review of the OA landscape in the UK and its transitional agreements (TAs).
Focus on transitional agreements
We believe our review will be one of the most comprehensive studies of TAs ever conducted.
These agreements between institutions and publishers were put in place to enable journals to shift from a hybrid model of subscriptions and open access charges to a fully OA model while also constraining costs to institutions and research funders. They do this by refocusing subscription spend to cover both read access and OA publishing across a publisher’s portfolio.
Since 2016, Jisc has negotiated 47 TAs, which have rapidly increased the amount of funded research being made OA and supported compliance with funder policies.
We’ve also engaged with publishers through our TA oversight group and have gained a greater understanding of different publishers’ OA strategies, their approach towards cost and price transparency and their progress of shifting their portfolios to OA.
Role of transformative journals
Although our review will focus on TAs, we will also look at the role of transformative journals (TJs) in the switch to OA. TJs are hybrid journals that, while still running subscriptions, are working towards transitioning to full OA.
As part of a programme run by Coalition S, an international consortium of research funders and research organisations, publishers that agree to meet annual OA targets for TJs are eligible to use Coalition S members’ OA funding.
Disappointingly, Coalition S’s most recent review of TJs revealed that, in 2022, almost 1,600 titles (68 per cent) failed to meet their targets. As a result, those journals will be removed from the TJ scheme at the end of 2023.
Although a high proportion of titles did not make the bar, the Coalition S review found that publishers that did hit their targets—including Cambridge University Press (CUP), The Company of Biologists, Rockefeller University Press and the Royal Society—generally have high numbers of TAs and offer a range of OA publishing models.
Why we need a critical review
Against this backdrop and a drive to create more collaborative, open research practices and culture, Jisc’s review of TAs and the OA landscape is designed to spark sector-led conversations about the future landscape of OA research dissemination. We will share our findings in a report to be published January 2024, which will provide an evidence base and inform national and international discussions.
It will also explore the requirements for ongoing and interim TAs with publishers.
This significant piece of work, which began in January, was commissioned and is governed by Jisc’s strategic groups, with input from DeltaThink, an OA analytics company.
Through the review we will be looking to answer a series of questions. We will explore what proportion of scholarly literature is currently OA, what impact Jisc-negotiated TAs have had on the access models of UK research publications, what effect TAs have had on costs for UK higher education providers, how far they have facilitated author compliance with funder requirements, and how far TAs have enabled greater transparency around publisher OA processes for the academic sector.
Outside the review process, we also hope to stimulate discussions on how to achieve a global and equitable transition to OA. All researchers, no matter where they are located and whatever their funding situation, should be able to publish openly.
As well as opening access to knowledge, this will help achieve greater participation in a wide variety of research disciplines, topics and languages.
In the context of equity, publishers need to demonstrate that they are applying differential pricing based on transparent metrics, such as purchasing parity power, to all their customers as well as enabling those who cannot afford to pay anything at all.
Next steps
It’s encouraging that some societies and publishers have already announced broader targets for OA growth and transition.
For example, CUP has pledged that most of its research papers will be published fully OA by 2025, having exceeded 50 per cent in 2022. This runs alongside its open equity initiative that supports authors in low- and middle-income countries who wish to publish their research OA but do not have access to funding. The Company of Biologists has also published its growth targets, showing the contribution of TA and TJs.
But we are clear that there is more work to do.
Once we have digested and reflected upon the findings of the review, Jisc will continue to drive an evidence-based approach to evaluating progress and brokering arrangements that support the future research dissemination landscape the sector wishes to achieve.
Anna Vernon is Jisc’s head of research licensing