Opening the access debate

The final evidence session of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee inquiry into scientific publishing has exposed wide gaps in the understanding of issues surrounding open access publishing.

What is currently known of this relatively recent addition to the publishing arena - where access to published research is free, while authors pay for publication - is largely ’anecdotal’, warned Sir Keith O’Nions, Director General of the Research Councils.

The UK scientific community is far from in agreement on the subject, he says. ’[Some] individuals have very strong views; some know very little about it,’ he told committee members.

The Research Councils allocate the science budget ( just under ?2.4 billion pa) under the auspices of the Office of Science and Technology, a division of the Department of Trade and Industry. They are currently considering whether to make funds available to scientists who choose to publish via open access, says O’Nions. The Research Councils have chosen not to come down on either side of the debate, he stressed, but rather to facilitate discussion. But talk of offering an ’even playing field’ between publishing strategies, along with the assertion that any change in policy should evolve gradually, annoyed several committee members.

’You have the power to make a difference!’ said Evan Harris MP, an ardent open-access supporter. ’Aren’t you going to need a big shift?’ he asked, ’Otherwise nothing will change, it’s just going to take years and years.’

O’Nions will not be swayed, however. ’It would be a brave government that had sufficient confidence to move to an open access model,’ he said. ’It would be more ideologically than pragmatically driven.’

Any transition period where more than one publishing model operates would be ’extremely costly’, said Brian Iddon MP. Iddon, a member of both the select committee and the RSC, asked whether government funding could cover publishers’ costs. ’Whether the publishers be commercial, who are probably less likely to need help,’ he said, ’or the learned societies ... who obviously are going to find it extremely difficult to survive against the commercial publishers.’ Sir John Wood, presenting evidence on behalf of the Research Councils UK, and also an RSC fellow, was unsure but said he would follow this up.

The inquiry began on 1 March and a final report is expected in the summer.