The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has published a Report welcoming the UK Government's commitment to increasing access to published research findings, and its desire to achieve full open access. However, while Gold open access is a desirable ultimate goal, focusing on it during the transition to a fully open access world is a mistake, says the Report.
The Report calls on the Government and the Research Councils UK (RCUK) to reconsider their preference for Gold open access during the five year transition period, and give due regard to the evidence of the vital role that Green open access and repositories have to play as the UK moves towards full open access.
The Report recommends that the Government take an active role in promoting standardisation and compliance across subject and institutional repositories. It calls on the RCUK to reinstate and strengthen the immediate deposit mandate in its original policy and improve the monitoring and enforcement of mandated deposit. Further, the Report states that the Government and RCUK should revise their policies to place an upper limit of 6 month embargoes on STEM subject research and up to 12 month embargoes for HASS subject research. Further, it urges the Government to mitigate against the impact on universities of paying Article Processing Charges out of their own reserves. If the preference for Gold is maintained, the Government and RCUK should amend their policies so that APCs are only paid to publishers of pure Gold rather than hybrid journals to eliminate the risk of double-dipping, the Report noted.
Amongst the Reports other conclusions and recommendations are: The Government should work to introduce a reduced VAT rate for e-journals; Non-disclosure clauses should not be used in publishing contracts that include the use of public funds. If their use persists, the Government should refer the matter to the Competition Commission; and BIS must review its consultation processes to ensure that lessons are learned from the lack of involvement of businesses, particularly SMEs, in the formation of open access policy.
