Business, Innovation and Skills Committee: Open Access Inquiry

The House of Commons Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) Committee conducted an inquiry into the government's open access (OA) policy. The Physiological Society has submitted a response to the inquiry, which closed on February 7, 2013. 

A summary can be found below, with the full response downloadable as pdf.

The Physiological Society fully supports the move towards open access and has provided a ‘gold’ OA option for our two journals since 2005. Often publishers have been viewed in the negative light in the UK, but our relationship with successive companies has been positive providing both a significant return for The Society as well as facilitating the development of our journals to enhance dissemination. The income we receive has helped The Society to directly support and sustain physiology and physiologists in the UK and overseas.

Open access is, we believe, an opportunity and the Finch Report provides a way forward and should be implemented in a sensitive and pragmatic way. We have a number of recommendations that we hope will be viewed constructively. These are as follows:

  • The UK Government should adopt either 12 or 24-month delayed ‘green’ OA models depending upon the discipline, the former for science and engineering and the latter for arts and humanities.
  • The Government should carefully consider the impact of any CC-BY requirements on IP: we believe that a flexible approach should be adopted with clear guidance for authors.
  • The Government should adopt an either/or approach to publication of publicly-funded research: namely either ‘gold’ access with provision of appropriate level of funding or the ability to opt for a 12 month-delayed ‘green’ OA.
  • Government, publishers and Learned Societies should ensure appropriate provisions are in place to avoid double payment during any transitional phase, or indeed beyond, and regularly monitor the situation.
  • Over the next 5 to 10 years continued dialogue should be sustained between stakeholders and an evolution of the Finch Group should be established to meet annually and review developments both within the UK and globally.
Attachment: 
application/pdf icon2013-01 BIS Open Access Inquiry - Response.pdf