Research Consulting has announced publication of its report on the cost to UK research organisations of implementing funder open access policies.
Commissioned by London Higher and SPARC Europe, Counting the Costs of Open Access highlights the compliance burden associated with the move to open access publication of research articles, and for the first time identifies the administrative cost of making articles open access through the ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes. Based on a national survey of UK research organisations conducted in September 2014, the report’s key findings include:
- Achieving compliance with Research Council UK’s open access Policy cost at least £9.2m in 2013/14 – with a further £11m or more spent on article processing charges (APCs).
- The burden of compliance falls disproportionally on smaller institutions, who receive minimal grant funding.
- Making an article open access through payment of an APC (the ‘gold’ route) takes 2 hours or more, at a cost of £81.
- Making an article open access through self-archiving in an institutional repository (the ‘green’ route) takes just over 45 minutes, at a cost of £33.
A copy of the full report is available to download here, and the findings are made available under a CC-BY licence. The full press release is here.
