Dr. Robert Parker, the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), has welcomed the Open Access (OA) proposals announced earlier in the week by Research Councils UK (RCUK). However, he has opined that the estimated £50 million annual transition costs would mean a bumpy ride ahead for the nation’s researchers and institutions.
Dr. Parker said the RSC had always supported a move towards Gold Open Access, but warned that money diverted from the already frozen science budget could hit research projects. He added that no new money was being found to help with the significant transition costs to the new OA publishing model, so the RSC was ready to work with the government to work out how this hole could be plugged. He further hoped that the £50 million to fund the transition would not come from research budgets.
RCUK stated that all peer reviewed papers that resulted from research wholly or partially funded by the councils must be published in journals that are compliant with RCUK’s OA policy. It would provide block grants to institutions to fund the Author Processing Charges (APCs) required under the new system. There is reportedly no clarity yet on the level of funding RCUK would provide, nor how it would be distributed.
Dr Parker stressed that all RSC journals would be compliant with RCUK requirements for Gold Open Access. However, he expressed concern over the shorter six-month embargo period the RCUK has adopted for journals that do not offer a Gold Open Access option. According to him, this does not align with the government's recommendation of an up to 12 month embargo period for science, technology and engineering publications.
