Frontier Economics has released an independent research that sets out publishing's contribution to the innovation cycle, incorporating existing research with stakeholder views. The report finds that without the highly specialised and time-intensive tasks carried out by UK academic publishers, innovation may be less effective.
It also suggests that the nature and extent of academic publishing's role in facilitating innovation is largely absent from existing research or government thinking - meaning the broader impact of the sector may be underestimated or misunderstood.
Academic journal publishing is one of the UK's strongest performers and the sector is a global leader, exporting around £1.4bn per year. The sector supports the UK's exceptionally strong science base as well as the UK's £33bn R&D sector, two thirds of which is performed by businesses and one quarter by universities.
The report finds a framework of four core stages where academic publishing contributes to research and innovation - Funding, Activity, Outputs and Innovation.
Funding - Publishing helps funders assess quality of research through peer review, metrics and bespoke tools, as well as pointing to emerging research areas.
Activity - Publishers support and improve research activity through peer review and additional contributions before, during and after publication which help maintain research quality and integrity. Publishing can also enhance collaborations, help create fields of study and affect behaviour change.
Outputs - Publishers help make research outputs more useful, ensuring they are accessible (including increasingly via Open Access) searchable, discoverable, inter-related, up-to-date and archived. They also ensure clear attribution by establishing IP and primacy, as well as signalling quality and validity.
Innovation - Publishers create and develop tools and work with industry to improve absorptive capacity. These include data platforms, collaboration management and sector-specific tools.
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