UKRI accepts open access monographs must be ‘fully funded’

The UK’s main public research funder accepts that it will have to “fund fully” the cost of making monographs open access, its policy lead on the issue has told an online conference.

Sir Duncan Wingham, who is chairing the steering group reviewing UK Research and Innovation’s open access policy, also said the funder was likely to have a “ring-fenced path” for covering open access monograph costs.

As part of its open access review, UKRI proposed last year that all scholarly monographs, book chapters and edited collections by authors who are supported by its funds be made open access within 12 months of publication.

However, this prompted concerns that without extra funds to pay for the processing charges associated with open access publishing, many scholars would find it too hard to publish. Concerns have also been raised about the effect of a 12-month embargo on learned societies that publish and smaller publishing groups.

Sir Duncan, speaking at a Westminster Higher Education Forum policy conference on open access, said there was “very clear evidence that the margins involved in monograph publishing are very small, and in fact there is even evidence that as a business it is starting to become difficult”.

As a result, “we do accept that we…need to fund fully the cost of monograph open access for those articles that we fund”, he added, although he pointed out that UKRI-funded research represented only a small proportion of monographs in the UK.

Expanding his comments in a question-and-answer session, he said UKRI was “thinking of offering more time before the policy kicks in, maybe two years, maybe three.

“We are looking at embargoes also, because, again, the whole manuscript market is not in the same degree of maturity when it comes to open access as are articles.”

He also said, “I think we will have ostensibly a ring-fenced path for covering manuscript costs but will hold [grants] at the [research] councils and not distribute” them, unlike block grants for covering article open access, “simply because the volumes aren’t large enough”.

Sir Duncan, executive chair of the Natural Environment Research Council, added that UKRI would announce how much funding it would allocate for open access when its new policy is unveiled later in the summer, but “if you do a couple of back-of-the-envelope sums” based on the current funding formula, “you will realise that there is a strong argument for a significant increase”.

He added that UKRI continued to see block grants – which are currently given to research institutions to help them cover the cost of open access – as the “best mechanism to enable the universities to implement the policy”, although “we do very much acknowledge that the reporting on those grants is over-complicated and can be greatly simplified”.

simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com