“Our products and services must develop and evolve to ultimately help researchers maximize their contribution to the world’s scientific understanding. The move to open science reinforces our core purpose as a learned society, which is the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and education.
Conducting science more openly can accelerate scientific discovery…
The sector-wide shift towards open access is a huge opportunity for us at IOP Publishing, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. We share the ambitions of policymakers and funders, and we know that the support from researchers for an open future is there. A global study that we carried out with other society publishers found that over half of physical science researchers want to publish open access. Yet 62% of respondents also told us that a lack of monies from funding agencies prevents them from doing so….
There are a range of models being deployed to recoup the investments that publishers make into the management of peer review and ensuring quality research outputs. Gold open access to the Version of Record delivered through institutional agreements is emerging as the most prominent model, and for good reason. It’s financially sustainable at scale; it empowers authors because they don’t need to find the funding themselves; it delivers universal access to authoritative and credible research; and it provides the exposure that researchers crave — with articles published on an open access basis at IOP Publishing downloaded 80% more and cited 30% more than articles behind paywalls.
As we all set our sights on a fully open world and the benefits it undoubtedly brings, the concern remains that researchers from less wealthy countries and institutions or those working in less well funded disciplines could find themselves locked out of being able to publish open access. It’s going to take a concerted effort to put in place broader global financial support for open access above and beyond the article publishing charge discounts and waivers that publishers have already put in place….”