Europe PMC Team

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Imagine, if you will, open access as a train, running up and down the  
length of the country, travelling anywhere track is laid, delivering  
papers, books, ideas to all and sundry. Research funders have the  
opportunity to man the signal boxes and set the open access movement's  
direction of travel. That is what the Wellcome Trust intends with the  
extension of our open access policy to include scholarly monographs
and  
book chapters, part of our on-going commitment to making the research
we  
fund open to all in order to maximise its impact.

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[](http://www.flickr.com/photos/shutterhacks/4474421855/ "Books by shutterhacks, on Flickr"){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}

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The Trust has been very vocal about our position towards open access,  
but until recently monographs hadn't been included in our policy. As a  
funder of research in the medical humanities, we recognise that  
monographs are one of the primary research outputs within these  
disciplines. As we value all the research we fund equally, it seemed  
important for us to lay down some new track and ensure that these  
outputs can be accessed by all. Extending our open access policy to  
include them seemed an obvious step.

Immediate and open access to the research outputs which arise from  
our funding is a longstanding and fundamental principle of the
Wellcome  
Trust. We accept there is a cost associated with this and fund our
open  
access policy accordingly. The fee for existing open access options  
-- ensuring all published material is converted to XML, and then made  
available in html and PDF -- for books currently averages around
£9,500,  
and we anticipate the average cost to make a book chapter open access  
will be £1,800. Using these figures we did some cost modelling to  
determine how much open access monographs and book chapters would cost  
when forming the extension to the policy.  
We estimate that when we reach 100% compliance with the extension to  
the policy, which in our experience takes time, it will cost the Trust  
roughly £775,000 a year in "monograph-processing charges", or 0.1% of  
our current research spend of approximately £650 million. This
includes  
only Wellcome Trust-funded monographs and book chapters which fit the  
policy's criteria. Our policy only covers works aimed specifically at  
academic research audiences, so trade books and text books, for
example,  
aren't included -- there's more about this in our
[FAQs](http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@policy_communications/documents/web_document/wtp052687.pdf){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}.

To make academic titles immediately and freely accessible to readers,  
0.1% of our annual research spend is a worthwhile price to pay. It is  
easy to find examples which illustrate this. Data from [YBP Library
Services](http://www.ybp.com/acad/EssentialsCover.htm){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}  
show that the average price for an academic book in the life sciences  
is around \$90, (and this includes books which could be considered to
be  
aimed at a relatively broad audience, which tend to be cheaper than  
those aimed at a more specialised audience). If we divide YBP's data
by  
those they list as "general academic" and "advanced academic" then the  
average price for a life sciences book is roughly \$100 and \$40  
respectively.

With these prices and a widespread tightening of belts, it is not  
surprising that print runs for academic monographs tend to be in the
low  
to mid-hundreds. When you compare this with the number of views open  
access books receive the contrast is stark. For example, as Open Book  
Publishers report, *Foundations for Moral Relativism* by J. David
Velleman was accessed by 1,800 readers from 46 countries in its first
ten days.

Funders have a unique ability to identify which research communities  
are essentially cut off from the open access network, explain why open  
access is the most effective way to communicate the books, books  
chapters and journal articles that those communities produce, and  
provide them with the material means to achieve it. Of course, those  
research communities, and the publishers who serve them need to adopt
it  
too, but given the benefits funders should be confident open access  
monographs can move forward in the same way as research articles have  
been doing. There are already signs this is happening as Frances
Pinter,  
founder of [Knowledge
Unlatched](http://www.knowledgeunlatched.org/) (a global library
consortium enabling open access books), recently became the [new CEO of
Manchester University
Press](http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=10247),
clearly signalling that this publisher sees open access as the future.
And why not?
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Imagine, if you will, open access as a train, running up and down the  length of the country, travelling anywhere track is laid, delivering papers, books, ideas to all and sundry. Research funders have the opportunity to man the signal boxes and set the open access movement’s direction of travel.

Rogue Scholar Beiträge

Monographs and book chapters must become a larger part of the open access landscape