Open Access News

Q14 Chairman [Phil Willis]: I suspect we will come back to this in future sessions but we are interested in the issue of scientific publications and the way in which the Government is going to lead in that area. What is the Office of Science and Technology's view of the Research Council UK's proposed policy on scientific publications?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Well, as far as the question of the "author pays" model or "subscriber pays" model our view is that neither of these models is clearly better than the other. We think there are advantages and disadvantages of both models and so our approach is that we should have a level playing field as between those two publishing models. As far as RCUK's policy is concerned their latest consultation closed on 31 August. I think the policy they have put forward did require some further development on it. The issue here is what they said effectively is we want you to publish it as soon as you can, subject to reaching agreement with the publishers as to when that would be. That seems to me to put researchers in an impossible position, ie, every individual researcher has got to start negotiating with the publisher as to what that means. I urged them and the publishers to get together to see if they can formulate a policy as to what that in practice means. Those discussions are taking place and I hope we will soon reach agreement on that.

Q15 Dr [Brian] Iddon: Lord Sainsbury, you must sometimes feel a bit like King Canute on this issue in that the Wellcome Trust is acquiring a repository now, Liverpool University is certainly going in that direction, and a lot of organisations now are welcoming open access publishing, whatever model is chosen. Do you not think the Government ought to take a much stronger lead on this and have you had any conversations internationally on this particular issue because things are happening abroad which might wash over you eventually?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: First of all, I think King Canute is a much maligned figure because he was the person who said "if I sit here and I command the waves to go back they will not", so he was rather a good guy. I do not feel at all like him. If you look at this internationally and in this country, I think we have seen a peak in the enthusiasm for open access publishing and a fall-off in people putting forward proposals for it because some of the difficulties and costs are now becoming clear. The question of institutional repositories is a slightly different one because I think there is a role for institutional repositories, but in rather specific circumstances, which is there is a whole series of fields of research where the people like publishing their papers and what they are doing before they send them to the journals, and this is a very good way of communication between research communities. The question here is what is the requirement or the desire for people to publish them alongside publishing them in the actual journals? I think that is for individual universities to decide for themselves as to whether that is a cost that they think is justified subject to whatever agreement is reached with the publishers on what is the proper thing to do.

Q16 Dr Iddon: Have you had any conversations with the learned societies? I accept what you have just said that there seems to be a peak but if that peak is reversed and open access publishing - and this is my feeling - does take off, it could wreck some of the learned societies in that they gain a lot of their income from publishing. So I repeat my question: have you had any conversations with the learned societies on this issue?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I have not recently but what I said about RCUK having conversations and discussions with the publishers also includes the learned societies because I think the same issue is here. The basic issue is it is very difficult to have a model which makes sense for the publisher if you say we require people to publish on an alternative basis alongside that. Either you have an alternative kind of publishing or you say there is some agreement whereby a publisher has some period at least when it is not published in another form. I think that is perfectly reasonable while you require the users of publishers to produce the journals and all the mechanics and infrastructure.

Comment. Three quick replies. (1) Lord Sainsbury still seems to think that the draft RCUK policy makes OA journals primary and OA repositories secondary, rather than the other way around. (2) His objection that the current draft requires RCUK-funded researchers to negotiate with their publishers may be answered in two very different ways. Publishers may adopt policies for RCUK-funded authors that permit no negotiation, as we've seen them do in response to the NIH policy. The current draft invites publishers to take this approach. Or the RCUK could revise its draft policy to make publisher consent unnecessary, as the Wellcome Trust policy has done. (3) Lord Sainsbury's claim that there has been a peak in the enthusiasm for OA is a sign that he's been listening to publisher lobbyists more than OA proponents themselves.