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Spotlight on: The Finch Report

09 Jan 2016 by iopp

In the last 18 months the debate over the future of the scientific publishing industry has significantly intensified, focusing particularly on the questions of who pays and who benefits, and who has access to published research.

The debate in the UK has been extensive and this summer was galvanized by the publication of the Finch report.

What is the Finch Report?

The Finch Report contains the recommendations of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (also known as the Finch Committee) chaired by Dame Janet Finch.

The group was formed in 2011 by the UK Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, in response to the open access debate. The committee was made up of 15 representatives from every side of the publishing debate and they were asked to consider how access to research could be expanded.

Steven Hall, managing director of IOP Publishing, was a member of the committee.

What were the key recommendations of the committee?

The report recommended a programme of action to enable more people to read and use the publications arising from research, particularly giving clear support for the ‘gold’ open access publishing model.

Under the gold model, the costs publishers incur are covered by author fees instead of by library subscriptions, and research articles are made freely accessible to everyone on publication.

The report also recommended extensions to current licensing arrangements in the higher education, health and other sectors, improvements to the infrastructure of repositories, and support for the moves by publishers to provide access to the great majority of journals in public libraries.i

What was the UK government’s response to Finch?

In July 2012 the Government announced that it accepted the recommendations of the committee and looked to the Funding Councils and Research Councils to implement them in consultation with universities, research institutions, researchers and publishers.

In their response to Finch, the Department for Business, Skills & Innovation said that the UK government recognises “that while open access means free access to the user and full right of search, it does not follow that open access has no cost…” and that “publicly funded research institutions will need help in paying for article processing charges with this funding set to come out of existing research funds.”ii

The only proposal by Finch that was wholly rejected was a recommended reduction in value added tax for e-journals, which David Willetts said would contravene EU rules. However, the Government has said that no additional funding will be made available for the recommendations on extending current licences in higher education and the health sector, so these look unlikely to be implemented.

On 7 September 2012, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills announced a £10 million Government investment to help universities with the transition to open access to publicly funded research findings with the goal of enabling UK institutions to kick-start the process of developing policies and setting up funds to meet the costs of article processing charges.

David Willetts said of the move “Removing pay walls surrounding publicly funded research findings is a key commitment for this Government and will have real economic and social benefits.”iii

Reactions to Finch

The reception to the Finch report has varied greatly from those who actively support it, to those who are deeply opposed to its recommendations.

Criticism has mainly focused on the report’s favouring the gold route to open access rather than green. Green open access refers to authors self-archiving an article in a subject or institutional repository. It is generally the author’s final peer-reviewed version (the accepted manuscript before it is prepared for publication), not the published version. Articles are usually posted after an embargo period. However, in this model no contribution is made by the author to the costs of publication.

At the heart of the criticism is the belief by some that publishers do not add value to the scientific process and that by supporting the gold route to open access the Government was conceding too much to publishers.

Finch recognised, however, that publishers provide “high-quality services to authors and readers” and that “they make a significant contribution to the British economy, to export earnings and …to the performance and standing of the UK research community.” iv

Michael Jubb, the director of the Research Information Network, an independent research and policy unit, responded to the criticisms levelled at Finch in an article in Research Fortnight in July. Jubb’s view is that, “Gold isn’t a sop to publishers; it is the only sustainable way to achieve the goal of unrestricted accessibility…” and that “Green is an impoverished type of open access, with embargo periods; access only to an author’s manuscript, without links and semantic enrichment; and severe limitations on the rights of use.”v

IOP’s response to Finch

Following the UK government’s acceptance of the Finch recommendations, IOP responded with the following statement from Professor Sir Peter Knight, President of the Institute of Physics:

“We fully support the goal of expanding access to research publications but it will be a significant challenge.

“The report clearly recognises the challenge the transition poses to learned societies. With more than two-thirds of the Institute’s charitable projects funded by the gift-aided profits from our publishing company, IOP Publishing, it’s crucial to us that the shift is managed carefully.

“For IOP Publishing and the Institute, publishing is not a purely commercial endeavour; it is part of our mission to successfully communicate research findings and help progress science. We take pride in providing a high-quality service to authors and readers.

“Expanding access to research outputs while ensuring the robustness of new publishing models is going to require a transition period, especially when the international nature of academic publishing is taken into consideration. The report’s recommendations, when taken together, will help make the transition possible.

“We will continue to innovate; building on our existing open access and hybrid journals – something IOP Publishing has long excelled in – to contribute to a more open access future.”

What happened next?

The Finch report was only the first major pronouncement about issues relating to access over the summer. Following the UK Government’s acceptance of Finch in July, the Research Councils UK announced a new open access policy to come into effect for all research articles submitted for publication from 1 April 2013 that arise from Research Council funding.vi

The new Research Councils policy requires all relevant papers to be published on a gold open access basis, using a ‘CC-BY’ licence, unless the author’s chosen journal does not offer a gold open access option, in which case the paper must be deposited in a repository within six months of publication. The cost of publication charges will be met from funds established by universities from block grants provided by the Research Councils. At the time of writing the size and nature of the block grants and any conditions attached to them are yet to be announced.

The UK Higher Education Funding Councils also announced that “they are developing proposals for implementing a requirement that research outputs submitted to the Research Excellence Framework or similar exercise after 2014 shall be as widely accessible as may be reasonably achievable at the time; and that they will consult their partners in research funding, and a wide range of other interested bodies, before finalising their plans.”vii

The European Commission also announced new policies both for open access to publications and for access to data arising from research funded under Horizon 2020, the successor to Framework Programme 7 which will come into effect in 2014.ix

In a statement the Commission said that from 2014 all articles produced with funding from Horizon 2020 will have to be either accessible immediately via gold open access (with up-front publication costs eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission) or available in an open-access repository no later than six months after publication.

The Commission also recommended that its members take a similar approach to open-access publishing and set a goal of 60% of European publicly funded research to be available under open access by 2016.

What are the implications of Finch to the global scientific community, publishers and librarians?

The effect of these new policies on scholarly communications will be strongly influenced by the way in which they are implemented and the extent to which they are mirrored in other countries.

Even if all UK research funders, public and private, mandate open access publication, that will only cover around 6% of the world’s research output. It would require several other major research-funding countries to make the same commitment before open access became the dominant publishing model.

IOP will continue to play an active part in the debate and will continue to work closely with governments, funders and the scientific community to support solutions that will make sustainable open access a practical reality.

As the open access landscape is changing rapidly, we aim to keep you informed on new policies, mandates and legislation and will provide advice to our partners and boards on how they may be affected by new developments.

References:

iRIN website

ii www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/science/docs/l/12-975-letter-government-response-to-finch-report-research-publications.pdf

iii news.bis.gov.uk/Press-Releases/Government-invests-10-million-to-help-universities-move-to-open-access-67fac.aspx

iv www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/wg

v www.researchinfonet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/RF-article-25-July.pdf

vi www.rcuk.ac.uk/media/news/2012news/Pages/120716.aspx

vii creativecommons.org/licenses

viii www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2012/statementonimplementingopenaccess

ix ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/era-communication-towards-better-access-to-scientific-information_en.pdf

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