What is open access publishing?
Making research papers freely readable rather than behind a subscription — and the argument for it is straightforward, while the mechanisms for paying for it have created new problems.
The case for it. Most research is publicly funded. Under the subscription model, the public pays for the research, academics write and peer review the papers without payment from the publisher, and institutions then pay again — substantially — to read the results. Researchers outside well-funded institutions, practitioners, journalists and the public cannot access work their taxes funded.
The routes:
Gold open access. The published version is free to read immediately, funded by an article processing charge (APC) paid by the author, their institution or their funder. Charges for prestigious journals run to several thousand pounds per article.
Green open access. The author deposits a version — frequently the accepted manuscript rather than the publisher's formatted version — in a repository, sometimes after an embargo. Free to the author, and the version available is not the version of record.
Diamond (or platinum) open access. Free to read and free to publish, funded by institutions, societies or grants. The model many regard as the right answer, and it is a small share of output.
Hybrid journals charge subscriptions and offer paid open access for individual articles, which has been criticised as double dipping.
The problems the APC model created:
It shifts the barrier from reading to publishing. Researchers without funding — early career, from less wealthy institutions, from lower-income countries — can read everything and cannot afford to publish. The inequity moved rather than disappearing, which is the central criticism.
Predatory publishers exploit it, charging fees for minimal or no peer review, and they are a genuine and growing problem.
Costs have not fallen as expected.
The policy position. Major funders — including UK Research and Innovation and the coalition behind Plan S — require open access for funded work, and transformative agreements between institutions and publishers combine subscription and publishing costs.
Preprints provide immediate free access before peer review, and are now normal in several fields.