The UK is already a leader in achieving open access for journal articles but have recently taken a further step. The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), a major funder of UK research, has announced that starting in April 2022, researchers receiving support from their £8 billion annual fund will be required to make copies of their papers publicly available immediately upon publication and that they be published under a Creative Commons copyright.
The UKRI made the common sensible argument that “publicly funded research should be available for public use by the taxpayer.” Many of us here in the US have been making this argument for years. Why should the public be forced to pay for the research and then to pay again to see the results?
Academic publishers are, of course, up in arms about the changes. They say that the changes will confuse researchers, threaten academic freedom, and undermine open access. You needn’t be a cynic to suspect that what they really mean is that the changes will undermine their business model and cost them money.
The publishers feel they have a right to their rent because they’ve always had it but it’s harder and harder to make a case for their role in the process. Of course, as I’ve also said many times, universities and researchers also own part of the blame because their rewards systems require publishing in “top notch journals.” It’s not hard to imagine a more modern system based on a public repository for the papers funded and run by a consortium of universities and other research institutions. Doubtless, some arrangements would have to be made for peer review—which has its own problems—but, again, this is a solvable problem. The real difficulty is that universities are among the most conservative of organizations when it comes to changing the way they operate.