Open access ‘can cut costs by up to 30 per cent’

By: Katie Mantell

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Open access ‘can cut costs by up to 30 per cent’</h1>
<h4>By: Katie Mantell</h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>Making scientific research freely available on the Internet could cut publishing costs by as much as 30 per cent without lowering publication standards, according to a new report by the Wellcome Trust, the United Kingdom’s leading biomedical research charity.</P><br />
<P>The report says that the open-access model of scientific publishing — in which authors pay for their research to be made freely available on the Web — is both economically viable and capable of guaranteeing high-quality research.</P><br />
<P>A payment of US$1,950 per research paper published would be sufficient to support a high quality and sustainable publishing model, it says. This, it adds, compares to an average of US$2,660 to publish a paper under the traditional system, in which readers pay for accessing research through their subscriptions to scientific journals.</P><br />
<P>The report’s conclusions contrast sharply with statements made last month by some commercial publishers that author fees of up to US$53,000 per paper would need to be charged under an open-access model to sustain top scientific journals (see <a  href="/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readnews&itemid=1260&language=1" target=_self rel="noopener noreferrer">UK science publishers give open-access warning</A>)</P><br />
<P>“The evidence presented [in the report] appears to contradict a lot of the figures quoted by commercial publishers and leaves me asking the question – how much profit should be made in publishing scientific research, which holds a potential benefit to us all, and which was funded by the public purse,” says Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust.</P><br />
<P>He adds that open-access publishing is “a win-win situation”, which makes “high-quality peer reviewed research available to everyone free of charge within a sustainable online market — plus savings of a much as 30 per cent.”</P><br />
<P><a  href="http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/images/costs_business_7955.pdf" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full report <EM>Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing</EM></A> <IMG alt="" src="/scidev_images/icon_pdf.gif" border=0></P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/news/open-access-can-cut-costs-by-up-to-30-per-cent/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/news/open-access-can-cut-costs-by-up-to-30-per-cent/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Making scientific research freely available on the Internet could cut publishing costs by as much as 30 per cent without lowering publication standards, according to a new report by the Wellcome Trust, the United Kingdom’s leading biomedical research charity.

The report says that the open-access model of scientific publishing — in which authors pay for their research to be made freely available on the Web — is both economically viable and capable of guaranteeing high-quality research.

A payment of US$1,950 per research paper published would be sufficient to support a high quality and sustainable publishing model, it says. This, it adds, compares to an average of US$2,660 to publish a paper under the traditional system, in which readers pay for accessing research through their subscriptions to scientific journals.

The report’s conclusions contrast sharply with statements made last month by some commercial publishers that author fees of up to US$53,000 per paper would need to be charged under an open-access model to sustain top scientific journals (see UK science publishers give open-access warning)

“The evidence presented [in the report] appears to contradict a lot of the figures quoted by commercial publishers and leaves me asking the question – how much profit should be made in publishing scientific research, which holds a potential benefit to us all, and which was funded by the public purse,” says Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust.

He adds that open-access publishing is “a win-win situation”, which makes “high-quality peer reviewed research available to everyone free of charge within a sustainable online market — plus savings of a much as 30 per cent.”

Link to full report Costs and Business Models in Scientific Research Publishing