In Japan, open access policy emerged in a unique economic context and evolved separately from the broader movement. The result? Turmoil.
(11 Mar 2026) Globally, the open access (OA) movement has long sought to liberate scholarly communication from commercial publishers. But Japan pursues open access and open science from a unique context; that approach has often blurred the OA landscape and left Japanese academics perplexed. In this article, Miho Funamori will explore how economic history and national policy have shaped a uniquely Japanese approach to open access and consider what this means for the country’s ongoing relationship to the OA movement.
“Did Japanese policymakers ever understand the intention of the global open access movement to broaden access to academic outputs that had been gated by the commercial publishers? It remains a mystery. Even though Japan’s OA policy mentioned that aim, it also identified its primary motivation as accountability to the public. And even though the policy mandated green OA, it also allowed for the payment of APCs and provided block funding that many universities used for that purpose (Chawla, 2024). Furthermore, it established a team to negotiate with publishers “to optimize the financial burden on the research community,” i.e., to negotiate transformative agreements, putting them out of step with Plan S, which had announced in 2023 that it would no longer provide financial support for transformative agreements (cOAlition S, 2023). So, while the policy caused some damage to commercial publishers, it also offered them benefits.
The Japanese approach to open access may have been further shaped by the country’s relative lack of reliance on international journals and scholarly communication infrastructures. In Japan, Japanese-language journals still play an important role in higher education and beyond, including STEM journals that are read by Japanese industries. Infrastructures supported by governmentally funded institutions, such as NII, provide an important and stable base for scholarly communication in Japan. At the same time, the funding streams of these standing institutions require constant renewal, subjecting them to the disruption of shifts in policy. The major funding Kitsuregawa acquired through his “research data” agenda is a prime example.”
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