Mixed reactions to radical Australian open access proposal

While advocates have lauded Australian chief scientist Cathy Foley’s proposal to make research literature freely available, it is opposed by the Australasian group that has led the charge on open access.

Dr Foley describes her “public access” model as an embellishment of the “read and publish” arrangements struck with scholarly publishing houses in recent years. In essence, these agreements renegotiate universities’ subscription deals to remove Australian research from publishers’ paywalls.

Under Dr Foley’s concept, the agreements – which would be negotiated by Canberra, rather than universities or university consortia – would also provide the Australian public with free access to the 96 per cent of new research produced elsewhere.

This could generate an A$2.3 billion (£1.2 billion) economic windfall and hundreds of new jobs through productivity and policy improvements, according to Dr Foley’s report.

She likens the approach to Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the government’s vehicle for negotiating national access to crucial medication. And she says that at worst, her model would cost about one-quarter more than Australian institutions’ current annual spending on subscriptions and open access publishing charges, which she estimates at A$362 million.

It could even produce a net saving by “leveraging commonwealth bargaining power” and reducing the need for repositories to house publicly available research, her report says.

UNSW Sydney research administrator Nick Fisk said the “internationally significant” proposal could produce “huge payoffs” beyond academia. He said many people in community organisations, small and medium-sized businesses and even government agencies could not afford journal subscriptions.

“In the health sector, unless you’re a member of a university, getting access to the literature can be really tricky. So, it really would be a terrific thing.”

Professor Fisk said the biggest risk with Dr Foley’s proposal was that the government “would effectively be the gatekeeper” of open access, leaving the scheme potentially vulnerable to budget cuts. There would also be “challenges” in defining the “Australian-led” research to be made open access, and identifying the Australian citizens exempted from journal paywalls.

He said these issues were not insurmountable and the model could be an “amazing swansong” for Dr Foley, whose term ends in December.

But the Council of Australian University Librarians (Caul), which has negotiated 25 read and publish agreements for Australian and New Zealand universities, stands opposed. Executive director Jane Angel said Dr Foley’s model was not genuine open access because it did not allow research to be shared.

“While Australians would have access through the national subscription, the rest of the world would not,” Ms Angel said. “This is at odds with the principles of open access.”

She said the approach would “entrench” publishing business practices “which see enormous profit margins derived from free academic labour”. And she insisted that the costs must not be offset by cutting spending on repositories, which were “essential infrastructure”.

“Read and publish agreements are not the end goal,” Ms Angel said. “They were always intended to be an interim measure to drive the transformation of publishing models.”

Professor Fisk said Caul had led the “fraught but worthy crusade” for open access, but it was making “the perfect the enemy of the good” in opposing Dr Foley’s model.

A spokesman for industry minister Ed Husic said the government was consulting the science sector over Dr Foley’s proposal. He could not say when a decision would be reached.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com