Publisher anti-OA Lobby Triumphs in European Commission

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SUMMARY: Professor Imboden's excellent essay in Research Europe points out that the defeat of the EC's proposed Green Open Access self-archiving mandate by the publishing lobby in Brussels in March is likely to prove to have been only a temporary triumph. The mandate, recommended in 2004 by the UK Select Committee and in 2005 by Berlin 3 in Southampton, has already been adopted by about 30 institutions and funders; counter-lobbying against the publisher lobby is growing -- in the UK, Europe, the US, Brazil, Australia and Asia -- to embolden institutions and funders to adopt the mandate; and the clamour just keeps getting louder.
   Professor Imboden also recommends that research funders should not buy into hybrid Gold OA at this time. They should only mandate Green OA self-archiving. Research funders and institutions would do well to heed Professor Imboden's cautions about pre-emptive Gold OA, and about the need carefully to think things through, for both scalability and sustainability. And meanwhile, full speed ahead on mandating Green OA!

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These are (belated) comments on a very timely and important paper by Dieter Imboden (President, Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation) that appeared in Research Europe at the end of March. These comments appear as a letter in Research Europe 12 July 2007:

Publishers Divide and Rule on Open Access
Dieter Imboden, Research Europe, 29 March 2007

Professor Imboden's piece is excellent: Exactly on target, it raises all the crucial issues, and is still very timely. (It appeared in March when the EC meeting took place.)

..."a paradox over access to that knowledge, which has defeated even the Commission, at least for the moment, judging by its communication last month on open access publishing..."

Professor Imboden is quite right to point out this defeat of the EC's proposed Green Open Access self-archiving mandate by the publishing lobby. There is reason for hope, however, that that defeat will prove only to have been a temporary one.

"The clamour of the research community for open access publishing..."

The clamour is actually for Open Access (not necessarily for Open Access Publishing (Gold OA), which is only one of the two ways to provide Open Access -- and not the surest or fastest way, which is Open Access Self-Archiving (Green OA), as Professor Imboden himself later notes in his essay).

"open access means 'free online access to all peer-reviewed journal articles'. Obviously, this would bring the traditional reader-paid publication system to an end."

That outcome is perhaps likely, but it not obvious: No one knows how long there will still be a demand for the print edition, nor whether and when Green OA self-archiving would make subscriptions unsustainable. The only sure and obvious thing is that 100% Green OA self-archiving will provide 100% OA (and that 100% OA is a huge benefit to research that is already fully within reach: all that needs to be done is to mandate it).

"When libraries began to cancel journal subscriptions for financial reasons, funders saw an important pillar of their research policy dwindling. As a result, many signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities in October 2003."

Many may have signed the Berlin Declaration because of journal unaffordability, but many others have signed because of research inaccessibility. OA is not primarily about journal economics but about research access.

"The declaration requires researchers to deposit their manuscripts in an open-access repository or to make sure that papers published in traditional journals are accessible free of charge after not more than 6 to 12 months."

Alas, the Berlin Declaration itself does not require this, and hence the many signatories have not committed themselves to this. However, the UK Select Committee (2004) and Berlin 3 (Southampton 2005) do recommend requiring this, and ROARMAP lists the c. 30 institutions and funders that have already adopted such a requirement, and several more that have proposed it.

"In reality, however, still only a very small fraction of authors fully exploit the potential of the traditional system."

Yes, and this is because only about 30 institutions and funders have as yet required the Berlin 3 Policy recommendation. Counter-lobbying against the publisher lobby is growing -- in the UK, Europe, the US, Brazil, Australia and Asia -- to embolden institutions and funders to adopt the mandate; and the clamour just keeps getting louder.

"[S]ome (mostly private) research funders, such as the Wellcome Trust and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute... ask their grantees to publish exclusively in pure or hybrid open-access journals, with free online access to author-paid articles."

Strictly speaking, Wellcome and HHMI merely require that their authors make their articles OA, whether the Green or the Gold way.

"If a library pays for online access, it means access to articles supported by HHMI or the Wellcome Trust is paid for twice. Thus, at least during a transition time, the well-intended initiative of some funders will pump even more money into the commercial publishing system."

This is absolutely correct, and points out a deep strategic error or shortsight on the part of HHMI and Wellcome. Funders should not pay for hybrid Gold OA at this time. They should only mandate Green OA self-archiving. (If they have funds to spare, let them spend them on supporting more research!)

"...changing to a total open-access world would shift the financial burden from institutions to funders [and] the research system as a whole... the distribution of public money for research (whether national or European) would have to change accordingly -- either by reducing support to institutions or by increasing the budgets of funders."

This shift would only happen if we agreed to pay pre-emptively for Gold OA now. If we instead only mandate Green OA, and let time and the market decide whether and when subscriptions become unsustainable, then, if and when subscriptions do become unsustainable (a portion of) the resulting institutional windfall subscription cancellation savings themselves can be redirected to pay for Gold OA, without the need to divert any new research or institutional funds. There is already more than enough money "in the system" (as Peter Suber puts it) now to pay all publishing costs. Gold OA will not cost more -- indeed it will cost a good deal less (only the cost of peer review, with Institutional Repositories taking over the distributed burden of archiving and access-provision).

"If every funder, small or large, weak or powerful, has to negotiate individually with the various publishers, we will be back where we began -- in a publishing world where economic power dictates the deals between libraries and publishers. Was not the feeling that scientists and libraries were at the mercy of big publishing companies one reason for the open-access initiative in the first place? It would be a tremendous mistake just to replace one victim by another -- that is to free the institutions at the expense of the funders. What can we do instead?

"Remember: the main issue is not to save money, but to provide fairer access to scientific information."

Hear, Hear! Pre-emptive payment for hybrid Gold OA is a Trojan Horse, and funders and institutions would do well to heed Professor Imboden's words.

Trojan Horse from American Chemical Society: Caveat Emptor

"So, funders and institutions should proceed together on the route to open access. The green route is easy and without major problems, but a good and just strategy for the golden route is still missing. Even if the intentions are good, we should not rush into unknown territory without considering the consequences."

Again, research funders and institutions would do well to heed Professor Imboden's cautions about pre-emptive Gold OA, and the need carefully to think things through, for both scalability and sustainability. But meanwhile, full speed ahead on mandating Green OA!

"Not all the funders have the same opportunities. Not all the disciplines are as powerful as particle physics, which, according to CERN director Robert Aymar, can easily finance the transition of the few journals in the field to complete open access."

Not all physicists are so sanguine about CERN's pre-emptive move toward Gold OA:

Harnad, John (and others) (2007) Debating the future of physics publishing. Physics World 29 (3): 22

"Let us -- scientists, funders, institutions, libraries and publishers -- talk together, before too many new boundary conditions make a rational solution difficult."

Indeed. And meanwhile, full speed ahead with Green OA mandates!

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum