Chief Scientist Cathy Foley wants all Australians to be able to read research articles for free. She proposes a “single national negotiating body” to arrange it.
And if that sounds too hard, Dr Foley has a precedent that everybody knows works, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Dr Foley has worked on a national open access plan throughout her term and sent a proposal to the Government last year. But she leaves at the end of the year and is now reaching beyond the science establishment to make her case, warning that Australian libraries pay $500m a year to journal publishers on terms that are not value for public money.
Her argument for a better deal is similar to the standard worldwide open access equity argument. The business model of commercial publishers is based on production costs (research written up in journal articles) being met by taxpayers worldwide. while they privatise the profits from journal subscriptions and one-off readers.
A poultice of profits
The division of RELX corporation which includes journal giant Elsevier reported first half 2024 turnover of $A2.859bn and a 37 % operating profit of $A1.075mbn. And while Elsevier and the other big four publishers are bending to pressure to make content to free to read, they are charging authors (and more commonly their institutions) , fees to publish.
This, she argues, is “a barrier to innovation.”
“People in industry, people in government, teachers and health professionals are among groups that do not have routine and easy access to the research literature. … Open access may speed discovery and avoid duplication.”
The Council of Australian University of Librarians is already on to this, negotiating free to read arrangements for research articles by Australian based academics with dozens of publishers, including the giant for-profits. The libraries pay for the open access out of their journal subscription agreements.
Dr Foley wants to go further – to open access for all Australians to research published anywhere in the world, any time. And while she presents options to do it, the big idea is a “public access model, where the government centralises negotiations for national read and publish agreements.”
“The key distinction of this model is in delivering benefits for all Australian residents, not just researchers,” she writes.
She cites all-up annual cost estimate $303m-$380m, “similar to current arrangements.”
But, there are buts. One Dr Foley acknowledges is that universities and research institutions will not want the Commonwealth to cut their budgets to fund the central scheme, or to take its’ cost out of research funding.
Another is whether anybody outside the OA community will care enough about this for it to be worth a Government’s time. Everybody gets the PBS, but explaining a national research open access funding authority will be a sedative in a class of its own.
