Open Access Revolutionizes Science Communication

In a Policy Forum, Mark McCabe and Frank Mueller-Langer explore how new open access (OA) mandates and agreements are changing how scientists share their work. They outline key contemporary unknowns in the open access landscape, as well as avenues for continued research. Since 2003, many national governments and international organizations have supported the Berlin Declaration on Open Access (OA) to Knowledge. More recently, some governments and organizations have introduced mandates to ensure open access to scientific publications and data. Notable initiatives include cOAlition S, launched in 2018 and supported by the European Commission and European Research Council, and a 2022 directive from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) known as the "Nelson Memo," which requires all U.S. taxpayer-funded research to be openly accessible to the public, without embargo or cost, by the end of 2025. Despite increasing adoption of open access practices, the various downstream impacts of related changes aren't widely understood. McCabe and Mueller-Langer focus on the effects of OA "big deals," or Transformative Agreements (TAs), where universities and a single publisher negotiate the fees for publishing (i.e. APCs, or article processing charges); these agreements influence market prices and structures for the different stakeholders in the publishing industry and in academia, say the authors. They point out that APC-based OA business models are not models all publishers can adopt. "It seems likely that OA and traditional reader-pay journals will coexist in the immediate future, and probably should in the long run." The authors argue that research funders and publishers responding to OA mandates should help gather more data to inform related policy updates. "Experimental research design and evidence collection supported by research funders and publishers are important elements for rigorous evidence-based policy advice on OA and the future of scientific communication," write McCabe and Mueller-Langer.