Research Consulting, within the scope of the OpenAIRE Work Package dealing with the FP7 Post Grant Open Access Pilot (WP5), was commissioned by LIBER in October 2016 to undertake an economic analysis study of the Open Access publishing market - "Towards a Competitive and Sustainable OA Market in Europe – A Study of the Open Access Market and Policy Environment". This study assesses the current state of the open access publishing market, and evaluates the range of policy options available to increase access and enhance competition and sustainability in the market.
The report is accompanied by an Annex which contains the mid-term evaluation of the FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot, organised by OpenAIRE. This annex will be discussed in detail in the reporting phase of the pilot, which ends on April 30, 2017.
Building on the findings of the EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot, the findings form the starting point for a roadmap towards a more sustainable and competitive market. It will be accompanied in its final form by a Roadmap document, developed with input from an expert workshop to be organised by LIBER in The Hague, on April 20, 2017. Registrations for this workshop are still open.
According to the report, the proportion of immediate open access content has been growing by about 15% per annum, but it still only accounts for about 5% of the global market for academic journals. Some parts of Europe are ahead of the global average, of course, but only by a small margin. There are big disciplinary variations, though, and the situation looks significantly better in areas where research funders have issued firm mandates in the public interest (e.g. life sciences and medicine).
Green open access has not been included in these figures. This is a really important means of increasing access, but as content is usually subject to embargo periods of 6 or 12 months, green OA does not directly address the goal of immediate OA as the default.
Overall, it was found that there is a growing market for OA content, but it largely operates alongside the dominant subscription model. From an economic perspective, OA journals operate in a smaller, more competitive market, but the subscription market remains characterised by inelastic demand, and dominated by large commercial publishers.
Further, the report identifies several roadblocks that stand in the way of full and immediate OA, which can be grouped in three clusters - lack of incentives for authors and publishers to move to OA; absence of an effective market; and infrastructure for OA publishing and archiving. The perceived significance of these roadblocks varies between countries and stakeholder groups, but if the EU is to meet its ambitious goal all will have to be addressed in some form.
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