Global equity in open access publishing

Authors, globally, publish a large proportion of their research articles in scholarly journals that charge fees for open access. With fee-based open access publishing growing rapidly, there is increasing concern around equity.

It is important to identify the financial barriers that authors encounter and hear the challenges they face, particularly in resource-limited contexts, in order to develop actionable plans and practical mechanisms that ensure no author is limited in their opportunity to publish their accepted articles open access in the journals of their choice. For example:

• How can discounts and waiver programs be adjusted to enable more equitable access to open access publishing for authors, as a short-term strategy?
• What actions could foster open access publishing fees that are differentiated globally?
• What can funders, ministries and research administrators do to understand just how much money they are directing, collectively, to scholarly publishing? How can the global community assess the distribution of such funds and their impact, particularly for researchers in different resource contexts?

This workshop will be an opportunity for those who fund and produce research, including scientists and scholars, research administrators, libraries and library consortia, university leadership, science councils and grant funders, and ministries of research and education, to better understand the current tensions in the scholarly communication landscape and explore immediate and long-term actions they each can take to ensure open access publishing is delivered in accordance with these principles:

• Fees associated with open access publishing services should be fair, reasonable, transparent, and globally equitable;
• Scholarly communication is part of the research process and, as such, costs for open access publishing services should ultimately be borne by research funders and institutions;
• Spending on scientific publishing should enable global open access by both readers and authors.

The first in a global relay, this workshop will be held in European and African time zones. The outcomes will be integrated with those of two additional and incremental workshops in early 2023 featuring viewpoints and contributions from the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, with the aim of defining and promoting global practices and action lines in pursuit of the principles above.

Organizers

African Association of Universities
cOAlition S
EIFL
International Science Council
Open Access 2020 Initiative
Science Europe
UNESCO

Setting and timing

The 2-part workshop will be held online via Zoom and and will include both plenary sessions and breakout discussions supported with virtual collaboration tools.

Date: 21 & 22 November 2022
Time: UTC 09:00 – 12:00 (UTC-1 08:00 to 11:00 / UTC+4 13:00 – 16:00)

Participation

This edition of the workshop series is dedicated to those who fund and produce research in the many regions of Africa and Europe. We welcome participation from a broad range of stakeholders, including scientists and scholars, research administrators, libraries and library consortia, university leadership, science councils, grant funders and ministries of research and education.

Please register via this link.

Deadline for registration: 7 October 2022 (extended).

The suggestions and outcomes of all three workshops in the series will be openly disseminated here and will be further discussed with other stakeholders, including scholarly publishers, in a second phase of activity from mid-2023.

Contact

Please write to [email protected] for any queries or suggestions regarding this workshop or the workshop series.