The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) has released a 2025 position paper expanding its focus on open access from output percentages to broader participation in scholarly communication.
Throughout 2025, OASPA launched the 'Next 50%' project, which included the release of a project primer, a survey, and three online workshops aimed at reframing discussions about open access. Feedback from these activities, including an interactive session at the in-person OASPA2025 conference in Leuven and an attendee poll conducted during the three-day event, informed the development of the new position paper.
The paper marks the culmination of the project and reflects on how achieving open access for more than 50% of research articles highlights the limitations of current publishing models. While OASPA has long promoted open access as the dominant mode of scholarly publishing, survey responses and workshop discussions prompted the organization to broaden its perspective beyond output volume to the quality and inclusivity of participation in open scholarship.
Published in November 2025, the position paper details this shift in emphasis and outlines five persistent challenges in open access: inequitable models, lack of funding, excessive focus on research articles, commodification of outputs, and insufficient coordination. It also identifies three interconnected barriers—geographic and economic exclusion, linguistic dominance, and disciplinary fragmentation—that restrict participation and reflect a system optimized for efficiency rather than diversity, inclusion and contextual relevance.
The paper differentiates system-level issues, such as reforming research evaluation frameworks, from sector-level priorities like supporting multilingual outputs. It discusses why solutions remain uncertain and encourages movement from aspiration to concrete action, emphasizing the need for honesty about existing gaps rather than confidence in rigid strategies.
OASPA calls for coordinated action among all stakeholders and outlines its own short, medium, and long-term goals as part of this commitment. These include continuing to convene diverse contributors and measuring progress toward participatory openness metrics as part of the organization’s strategic planning for 2026.
The paper acknowledges contributions from Andrea Chiarelli, Katie Fraser, and Rob Johnson of Research Consulting, who collaborated with OASPA throughout the initiative. Originally launched as the “Next 50%” project, the effort has evolved to embrace the broader ambition of achieving '100% open access' — shifting the conversation from percentage-based success to meaningful participation in global scholarly exchange.
Click here to read the original press release.
