The US of OA

Will a once-dominant superpower of open-access publishing reclaim its leadership role?

Ten years ago, the United States was the engine room of the global open-access movement. Reams of publications from its vast body of researchers put the country top both in the overall number of papers published and the number that were open access.

But that picture has changed in recent years. In 2018 the US National Science Foundation (NSF) reported that China had overtaken the US for overall output of research papers. And while the US remains the biggest producer of open-access papers, its share of the world’s total open publications has fallen as the proportion of its own output that is open has stagnated.