University of Bristol

Mike Taylor

[In opposition to [my speech supporting the motion "the open access
movement has
failed"](https://svpow.com/2024/06/05/the-ssp-debate-on-the-open-access-movement-has-failed-part-1-speech-for-the-motion/),
here's what Jessica Polka said in opposition to the motion.]{.small}

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

**The open access movement has not failed. It is in the process of
succeeding.**

Indeed, [over 50% of papers are now open
access](https://www.science.org/content/article/open-access-papers-draw-more-citations-broader-readership).
And this proportion is set to increase, for three reasons:

1.  **Top-down leadership**
2.  **(Overdue) attention to cost and equity**
3.  **New filters**

 

**First, top-down leadership.**

Richard Poynder argues that the movement has failed because "ownership"
of the movement has been handed to universities and funders. To quote
him:

> OA was conceived as something that researchers would opt into. The
> assumption was that once the benefits of open access were explained to
> them, researchers would voluntarily embrace it -- primarily by
> self-archiving their research in institutional or preprint
> repositories. But while many researchers were willing to sign
> petitions in support of open access, few (outside disciplines like
> physics) proved willing to practice it voluntarily.

Fundamentally, I agree. Individual scholars are still too hamstrung by
their incentives to act alone, without the strength of collective
action. Free thinking and individualism are prized in academia, with
investigators evaluated based on how unique and iconoclastic their
individual contributions are. And, in this competitive environment,
sticking your head above the sand to question the rules of the game --
the rules by which everyone who is evaluating you has succeeded -- is
not a recipe for success.

This is why I am grateful that funders, governments, and coalitions are
finally stepping in at scale to change the rules. I believe it is the
only pragmatic solution to this wicked problem. I'll share some
examples.

When discussing coordinated support for open access, we have to begin
where the movement began: Latin America, which has been leading the way
in coordinated support. For a quarter of a century, the publicly funded
bibliographic database SciELO, based in Brazil, has been providing free
access to scholarly journals. There are now over 1.2 million articles
from over 1,600 journals in collections representing 16 different
countries in south and central america and Africa.

And in 2018, a coalition called AmeliCA, which stands for OPen Knowledge
in Latin America and the Global South, launched to strengthen
partnerships between academic institutions and publishing
infrastructure. 400+ journals, nearly 3,000 books, and 100 institutional
repositories have joined.

But even outside of Latin America, in the last few years, we have seen
prominent funders establish public access policies.

Europe has been making serious inroads since the establishment of the
open access provisions of Horizon 2020. And when cOAlition S formed in
2018, it represented an unprecedented commitment to coordinate among
governments and philanthropic organizations in support of open access.

In 2021, UNESCO released [a recommendation on open
science](https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379949), elevating
the cause to an international stage, and providing a strong moral
imperative for individual governments to take action.

And in 2022, the United States White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy released the Nelson memo, which ensured zero-embargo
public access to federally-funded literature. When this takes effect at
the end of 2025, we are going to see even greater strides towards open
access and open data.

**Second, we are seeing some movement on cost and equity. That's long
overdue, but at least it's happening.**

The declaration of the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative suggested
that open access publishing would lower costs, and promote equity by
"shar\[ing\] the learning of the rich with the poor and the poor with
the rich."

In fact, the concept of an article processing charge wasn't even
mentioned in the principles. Instead, the authors wrote:

> Because price is a barrier to access, these new journals will not
> charge subscription or access fees, and will turn to other methods for
> covering their expenses. There are many alternative sources of funds
> for this purpose, including the foundations and governments that fund
> research, the universities and laboratories that employ researchers,
> endowments set up by discipline or institution, friends of the cause
> of open access, profits from the sale of add-ons to the basic texts,
> funds freed up by the demise or cancellation of journals charging
> traditional subscription or access fees, or even contributions from
> the researchers themselves. There is no need to favor one of these
> solutions over the others for all disciplines or nations, and no need
> to stop looking for other, creative alternatives.

Unfortunately, the creative alternative (that is to say, the article
processing charge) created by the publishing industry is coming at a
high cost. [APCs increased 50 percent from 2010 to
2019](https://fas.org/publication/publish-then-review/). And with
individual APCs reaching in to the six figures, it's no surprise that in
2022, [OSTP estimated that American taxpayers are already paying \$390
to \$798 million
annually](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/08-2022-OSTP-Public-Access-Congressional-Report.pdf)
to publish federally funded research.

That's why it's so damaging that many recent policies, like the Nelson
memo and plan S, don't go far enough to reduce economic exploitation.
Instead, the Nelson memo directs federal agencies to, quote, "allow
researchers to include reasonable publication costs \[...\] as allowable
expenses in all research budgets," which implies support for article
processing charges. This model creates major challenges for researchers
WITHOUT federal or other funds, to say nothing of those in low and
middle income countries, or in fields where resources are less
plentiful.

But, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

In May 2023, the European Union's council of ministers called for a "no
pay" model, in which costs for disseminating and evaluating research are
paid directly by institutions and funders. This can be achieved in
several ways, including with "diamond" open access journals. CoAlition
S's responsible publishing proposal is another acknowledgement of the
need for fundamental change. And the new Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
policy, which prevents the payment of APCs from grant funds, is a strong
signal that the system is being questioned.

 

**And the third reason open access will succeed: new filters.**

Richard Poynder questions the very benefits of having information
publicly accessible, given current developments around mis- and
disinformation. He argues for having a "membrane between scientific
research and the chaotic mess of false and arbitrary information that
swirls around the web."

Yes, preprints, the financial incentives around open access, and other
forms of open publishing do tip the balance away from gatekeeping and
toward inclusion. This means that the rate of spurious knowledge
available is going to increase.

However, it also lulls us out of a false sense of security in a system
that NEVER was equipped to form a fool-proof defense against
misinformation. For proof of that, you can look back to the Wakefield
paper, or to the current papermill crisis.

Instead, we need a better immune system for misinformation. To me, this
looks like moving away from a model in which 2-3 invited peers, who
cannot possibly be experts in everything covered in a highly
interdisciplinary paper with 30 co-authors, are rushed to give their
evaluation at a time when they are not at liberty to discuss the paper
with their colleagues. Then, all the information about whether a paper
is rigorous or interesting (and to whom) gets compressed down into a
single value -- the title of the journal in which it is published.

Luckily, many journals are conducting transparent review, in which the
reports are published. But, In order to create a system that is powerful
enough to identify and correct problems in the literature, we need to
disseminate research to large audiences BEFORE putting a stamp of
approval on it. We need to disentangle the functions of traditional
journals into a "publish, review, curate" model in which preprints and
other means of sharing research are the first step, and the entire
community can then discuss the work together.

And beyond that, we need to continue to experiment with new ways of
organizing knowledge altogether -- and this is what we are seeking to
support at Astera.

For example, there are many exciting experiments in publishing:
integrating code with narratives (like the Notebooks Now initiative from
AGU), micropublications (which are single figure papers), publishing
individual modules that can be linked together (for example,
Octopus.ac), creating machine-readable nanopublications (which break
knowledge down into triples: a subject, predicate, and object),
discourse graphs (that create knowledge graphs out of evidence and
ideas), and many others.

These threads are going to come together to create a future in which
knowledge is shared and interpreted in completely new ways. The success
of the open access movement is going to both lay the foundation for, and
maximize the benefits of, this technological transformation.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doi:10.59350/wp0pb-xaa40](https://doi.org/10.59350/wp0pb-xaa40)


In opposition to my speech supporting the motion “the open access movement has failed”, here’s what Jessica Polka said in opposition to the motion.
<strong>
 The open access movement has not failed. It is in the process of succeeding.
</strong>
Indeed, over 50% of papers are now open access.

SSP debate, part 2: Jessica Polka opposing “the open access movement has failed”

[As I noted [a week
ago](https://svpow.com/2024/05/29/westin-whats-coming-up-wednesday-wrangle-over-whether-oa-is-a-washout/),
to my enormous surprise I was invited to be one of the two participants
in the plenary debate the closes the annual meeting of my long-term
nemesis, [the Society for Scholarly
Publishing](https://www.sspnet.org/). I was to propose the motion "The
open access movement has failed" in ten minutes or less, followed by
Jessica Polka's statement against the motion; then each of us would make
three-minute responses to the other before the debate was opened to the
floor. What follows is the opening statement that I gave.]{.small}

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The motion before us is that the Open Access Movement has failed. To
demonstrate the truth of this proposition, I have to identify what the
"open access movement" actually is. And one of the problems that Rick
Poynder pointed out in [his Scholarly Kitchen
interview](https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2023/12/07/where-did-the-open-access-movement-go-wrong-an-interview-with-richard-poynder/)
is that there has never really been a single organization that
represents "The Open Access Movement" in the way that the Open Source
Initiative represents its movement. So we're going to look at four
initiatives going back 30 years.

We'll skip over the World Wide Web itself, which was originally
[announced by Tim Berners-Lee in
1991](https://groups.google.com/g/comp.archives/c/CfsHlSNYPUI/m/DTs60INnuzcJ)
with the words:

> The project started with the philosophy that much academic information
> should be freely available to anyone.

 

The first Open Access Movement we'll consider was [Stevan Harnad's
"Subversive Proposal" of
1994](https://groups.google.com/g/bit.listserv.vpiej-l/c/BoKENhK0_00),
calling on scholarly authors to self-archive their manuscripts in open
repositories. This proposal led to the publication of a book, the
development of the EPrints repository software and the creation of the
CogPrints repository for cognitive sciences. But can it be said to have
succeeded? To quote from the proposal: "If every scholarly author in the
world \[...\] established a globally accessible archive for every piece
of esoteric writing he did \[...\], the long-heralded transition from
paper publication to purely electronic publication would follow suit
almost immediately."

Measured against this vision of a sweeping global change, **This open
access movement surely failed.**

 

Now we consider a second open access movement: in 1999, Harold Varmus,
director of the National Institutes of Health, published [a proposal
called
E-BIOMED](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/E-BIOMED:_A_Proposal_for_Electronic_Publications_in_the_Biomedical_Sciences).
I quote:

> We envision a system for electronic publication in which existing
> journals, newly created journals, and an essentially unrestricted
> collection of scientific reports can be accessed and searched with
> great ease and without cost by anyone connected to the Internet.

Now, Harnad's Subversive Proposal had failed due to insufficient
grass-roots momentum. But the same fate could surely not befall
E-BIOMED, which was backed by the might of the USA's biggest civilian
research agency.

But there was opposition. In [a welcoming editorial about
E-BIOMED](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(99)00101-4/fulltext),
The Lancet noted "Much of the biomedical publishing community is
scrambling to defend itself against what it sees as an unprecedented act
of aggression."

Looking back sadly ten years later, [Varmus
wrote](//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK190606/): "The most shrill
opposition came, disappointingly, from the staffs of many respected
scientific and medical societies \[...\] The for-profit publishing
houses were also unhappy, and sent their lead lobbyist, the former
congresswoman Pat Schroeder, to Capitol Hill to talk to members of my
appropriations subcommittees." --- in other words, to get the NIH
defunded in retribution.

And the societies and publishers got their way. E-BIOMED was dead on
arrival. Twenty-five years on, it's so thoroughly forgotten that it's
hard to find on the Internet. It doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, and
isn't even mentioned in the entry for Harold Varmus.

**So the E-BIOMED open access movement failed utterly.**

 

A third open access initiative arrived in 2002: a conference that united
16 open access advocates with different perspectives and gave rise to
the Budapest Open Access Initiative. Its foundational document finished
with this plea:

> We invite governments, universities, libraries, journal editors,
> publishers, foundations, learned societies, professional associations,
> and individual scholars who share our vision to join us in the task of
> removing the barriers to open access.

Publisher opposition was significant. This very society \[the Society
for Scholarly Publishing\], [hired the consultant Eric Dezenhall to
discuss public relations strategies for discrediting open
access](https://www.nature.com/articles/445347a) --- for example,
equating subscription-based publishing with peer review, and messaging
such as "Public access equals government censorship".

The Budapest Initiative would have needed a tidal wave of support to
achieve escape velocity. In the face of this opposition and
institutional inertia, it only raised ripples.

**So the Budapest open access movement failed.**

 

And there are more. I could talk about

- The Public Library of Science (launched in 2003), and its progressive
  stagnation; or
- The Cost of Knowledge petition (2012) that started brightly but
  ultimately achieved only free access to a handful of journals.

But our time is limited, so let's jump ahead to our fourth open access
movement.

 

[Coalition S launched in
2018](https://www.coalition-s.org/coalition-s-launch/): a group of 11
national research funding organizations, quickly joined by the World
Health Organization and hefty private funders like the Gates Foundation
and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The tagline on their website
summarizes the goal: "Making full and immediate Open Access a reality".
Surely if anyone could create a successful open access movement, it
would be this powerful and wealthy group?

Coalition S started by launching what they called Plan S, which required
open access for grant-funded articles. It used a wrinkle in this
requirement as leverage to transition subscription journals to open
access. I quote from the document [*Guidance on the Implementation of
Plan
S*](https://www.coalition-s.org/wp-content/uploads/271118_cOAlitionS_Guidance.pdf):

> Authors publish Open Access with a CC BY license in a subscription
> journal that is covered by a transformative agreement which has a
> clear and time-specified commitment to a full Open Access
> transition.  
> \[...\]  
> In 2023, Coalition S will initiate a formal review process that
> examines \[...\] the effect of transformative agreements.

Well.

In June 2023, Coalition S published [its analysis of journals that had
signed up to the Transformative Journals
programme](https://www.coalition-s.org/blog/transformative-journals-analysis-from-the-2022-reports/).
It showed that only 1% of the journals in the program had flipped to
full open access. More encouragingly, 30% of journals were meeting their
open-access growth targets. But 68% had failed to meet the targets they
had signed up to. A quarter of the enrolled journals had an open access
rate of 10% or less.

The report says:

> The fact that so many titles were unable to meet their \[open access\]
> growth targets suggests that for some publishers, the transition to
> full and immediate open access is unlikely to happen in a reasonable
> timeframe.

Later that year, Coalition S published a review titled [*Five years of
Plan S: a journey towards full and immediate Open
Access*](https://www.coalition-s.org/blog/five-years-of-plan-s-a-journey-towards-full-and-immediate-open-access/).
Even the title feels like an admission of defeat: can you really have a
journey towards something immediate? The report affirms what the
analysis had suggested. I quote:

> Based on progress reports and the very low Open Access transformation
> rate of Transformative Journals, Coalition S decided to end its
> financial support for Transformative Arrangements.

**So Plan S's goal of transforming subscription journals to open access
failed.**

**In fact, *all* these open access movements have failed.**

 

So where do we stand now? Going right back to the start, Harnad's
Subversive Proposal said:

> Paper publishers will then either restructure themselves (with the
> cooperation of the scholarly community) \[...\] or they will have to
> watch as peer community spawns a brand new generation of
> electronic-only publishers.

That's still true, and represents the only real threat open access has
ever presented to publishers.

I quoted earlier the report in which Coalition S "decided to end its
financial support for Transformative Arrangements." But the report goes
on to say this:

> Instead, \[Coalition S\] will direct its efforts to more innovative
> and community-driven Open Access publishing initiatives. \[It\]
> acknowledges the growing need for alternative, not-for profit
> publishing models, and is actively involved in European and global
> efforts for Diamond open access.

*Plan* S has failed; but *Coalition* S is pivoting. The world's richest
research funders are getting together to build their own open access
platforms. That should be cause for publishers to carefully consider
whether, in their quest for short-term gains, they have painted
themselves into a corner.

 

We've looked at four open access movements and touched on several more.
Every one of them has failed. And they have failed, mostly, because of
opposition, obstruction and short-term opportunism on the part of
publishers who have exchanged their original mission for shareholder
value optimization.

But each wave has washed further up the beach.

There are three questions for this group:

- How many more open access movements will fail before one succeeds?
- When it does, will it succeed with the help of publishers, or despite
  them? And most crucially:
- Will it succeed with publishers or without them?

But until that day comes, we can confidently say that **the open access
movement has failed.**

 

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[doi:10.59350/cbmpt-b8k31](https://doi.org/10.59350/cbmpt-b8k31)


As I noted a week ago, to my enormous surprise I was invited to be one of the two participants in the plenary debate the closes the annual meeting of my long-term nemesis, the Society for Scholarly Publishing. I was to propose the motion “The open access movement has failed” in ten minutes or less, followed by Jessica Polka’s statement against the motion;

Rogue Scholar Posts

SSP debate, part 2: Jessica Polka opposing “the open access movement has failed”

The SSP debate on “the open access movement has failed” — part 1: speech for the motion