August 2, 2004

A catalyst for change

British politicians have mounted a sharp criticism of the scientific publishing industry and called on the Government to take urgent action to improve access to research information. The long-awaited report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee described the provision of scientific journals as "unsatisfactory" and called for a number of measures that will favour the transition to Open Access. Ian Gibson, who chaired the Committee, talked to Open Access Now about the Inquiry and its conclusions.

"It is discouraging that the Government does not yet appear to have given much consideration to balancing the needs of the research community, the taxpayer and the commercial sectors for which it has responsibility." Thus begins the Conclusions section of the report published on July 20, following the eight-month-long inquiry into scientific publishing by the Science and Technology Committee of the UK House of Commons. The report, entitled 'Scientific Publications: Free for all?', says that the Government must act rapidly and effectively to develop a coherent strategy for the future. "There is mounting concern that the financial benefits from the Government's substantial investment in research are being diverted to an excessive degree into the pockets of publishers' shareholders," notes the report. "We were disappointed by how little thought has been given to the issues within Government thus far and hope that this report will prove to be a catalyst for change."

"I don't think that they had realized that it's a problem," explains Ian Gibson, a former life-sciences academic from the University of East Anglia and Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich North since 1997. "No Government Department wanted to take responsibility for the issue. It falls between the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), [which funds universities, researchers (through Research Councils) and universities libraries through the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)], the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) [which funds the British Library], and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) [which supports the UK publishing industry as one of its business support activities]. And when an issue falls like that no one takes it on, so it's a good area for a Select Committee."

"The interesting thing is that people don't understand what a Select Committee is all about," comments Gibson. "It is a cross-party committee of MPs whose job it is to scrutinize Government departments. They prepare a report and request a reply from the Government and quite often there is a debate on the issue," he explains. "So it is a very good mechanism to focus the Government on the issue and to focus Government departments on taking responsibility for the issue."

"There was quite clearly a divergence of opinion," notes Gibson about the animated oral evidence sessions. "We heard from the publishing companies who were determined that they were doing a good job with their model and that Open Access had so many problems that it wasn't achievable in a lifetime. And then we also had Open Access advocates who were pretty enthusiastic and keen to see changes in scientific publishing." Gibson says that he was encouraged by Open Access initiatives in the US. "I got Harold Varmus (Nobel Laureate and co-founder of Public Library of Science) to come over to talk about the work he was doing over there for the good of science and technology. And he felt that [publishing] companies were making that difficult by increasing the price of journals and that also was confirmed by university librarians who were having to cancel journals year in and year out." The Committee was impressed by the large turnout at the oral sessions. "There were some good sessions," recalls Gibson. "It took a bit of tough chairing - I had to shut some of them up when they got over enthusiastic. But we got through it."

One of the major conclusions of the Committee was the need for the Government to support the establishment of a network of institutional repositories, or archives. "This report recommends that all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way."

Gibson refers to the recommendation for institutional repositories as "a rabbit out of the hat." He explains that it will be up to the research councils to implement the archiving strategies. "The research councils, which are part of the Office of Science and Technology, have huge multi-million pound budgets. They will have to tell academics, who don't take much interest in these kinds of matters, that they will have to publish in Open Access format." Gibson says that the Committee will expect academics to participate voluntarily, but he hints that additional measures will be taken if they do not. "We are challenging them to do it. The Research Councils could even set up their own repositories if they wanted." He notes that the Research Councils are already looking into Open Access publishing and he expects them to make some decisions before the end of the year when he predicts there will be a parliamentary debate on the issue.

The report calls on the Government to appoint a central body to oversee the implementation of the repositories; to help with networking; and to ensure compliance with the technical standards needed to provide maximum functionality. Gibson sees the British Library taking a major role in coordinating electronic archiving, adding that the Government must support digitizing projects at the Library. "The preservation of digital material is an expensive process that poses a significant technical challenge," notes the Committee. "This report recommends that the British Library receives sufficient funding to enable it to carry out this work. It also recommends that work on new regulations for the legal deposit of non-print publications begins immediately. Failure to take these steps would result in a substantial breach in the intellectual record of the UK." The Committee was critical of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). "They fund universities but they couldn't tell us how much they put into university library budgets," says Gibson. "They are going to have to look at that seriously now and support universities. A library is a major part of a university infrastructure so they ought to know how much they are spending - it's just disgraceful that they don't."

Gibson also sees a role for industrial and pharmaceutical companies in future initiatives. "We are encouraging industry to access information in the light of information and technology transfer. But at the same time industry doesn't pay anything into the system." He speculates that the pharmaceutical industry might even be drawn into funding repositories in university libraries. "The Government will have to make them stakeholders and partners in all this."

The Committee acknowledges that other approaches are also required and offers encouragement to those experimenting with Open Access projects. "Early indications suggest that the author-pays publishing model could be viable. We remain unconvinced by many of the arguments mounted against it," notes the report. The Committee called for continued experimentation with Open Access publishing initiatives. Gibson is sure that the funds will be made available to support these projects and the report "recommends that the Research Councils each establish a fund to which their funded researchers can apply should they wish to pay to publish."

Gibson acknowledges that these policies will put pressure on the commercial publishers to re-think their business models. "They are already beginning to react," he notes, referring to announcements from Springer and Elsevier about their policies on electronic posting that preceded the Committee's publication. "I think that they see the tide running against them," he says. The parliamentarians expressed their concerns that "financially powerful publishers may be using their strength during this digital transition period to make excessive profits while the going is good." Gibson adds that "their big profits have been annoying a lot of people and they have been denying a lot of people the ability to access information." He thinks that that they have recently changed their policies in anticipation of the report and feels that the Inquiry has forced them to act.

"The UK cannot act alone," say the Committee members. They feel strongly that the British Government should act as a "proponent for change" and "lead by example." Gibson feels that this is more likely to happen if Britain initiates Open Access activities rather than waiting for long political debates that might involve partners in the European Community, the OECD, or G8 countries. "Getting international agreement is going to take a long, long time. We can set the example." But he sees Britain's efforts as key in encouraging the European Commission and other international bodies to get involved in the debate. The report suggests that this is "a great opportunity for the UK to lead the way in broadening access to publicly-funded research findings and making available software tools and resources for accomplishing this work."

Gibson is confident that the Inquiry will help to make scientific publishing a priority for the British Government. "They are going to have to answer our report within the next two months. It's part of the Select Committee procedure. We are focusing them on the issues and we expect them to come up with a coherent plan," he says. He insists that this will require collaboration between all the major stakeholders, including Research Councils, libraries, publishers, learned societies and Open Access advocates. He and his committee will be working hard to publicize their results and convince their parliamentary colleagues of the need to act urgently. "It's rolling from here," concludes Gibson excitedly. "After all, there is no use having science without the information being available to everybody."

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