Is open access publishing truly equitable?

Let’s dive in!

Open access (OA) publishing promised a democratization of access to knowledge, leveling the academic playing field for researchers worldwide. Yet, the road to OA remains uneven. To deliver equitable access to publishing, a collaborative ecosystem is imperative: We must continue to foster partnerships between publishers and institutions, consortia, funders and governments.

Strengths

Global impact of scientific research

Scientific research enjoys an unprecedented global reach thanks to open access. OA fuels real-world impact and transformational agreements have sped up this transition.

Partnerships

Organizations like Research4Life provide guidance to publishers to implement waiver and discount programs that support authors from the world’s poorest countries.

Article performance four years after publication across all publication models:

Subscription
articles

Articles in a fully
open access journal

Open access articles
published in a hybrid journal

Delayed open articles
Free to read after an embargo period

Average full-text views per article

25

0

636

187

0

70

0

1827

332

0

100

0

2748

66

0

45

0

1059

Average citations per article

20

0

10

30

0

25

0

13

90

0

50

0

19

20

0

12

0

12

Average Altmetric score per article

15

0

3

166

0

40

0

8

433

0

100

0

16

100

0

25

0

6

Source Wiley

Weaknesses

Financial barriers

The transition to OA has created an additional financial barrier for some authors in regions or institutions where structures do not currently support TAs or direct APC funding.

INSIGHT:

Up to 60% of researchers from low-income countries pay APCs themselves
(Segado-Boj, 2022).

Sustainability concerns

Criteria for waivers and discounts offer specific support to authors from the world’s poorest countries. However, these do not address the needs of authors from middle-income countries, who may still struggle to cover APCs.

Wiley’s global open access reach

Countries offering open access via a transformational agreement

Countries eligible for a full waiver

Countries eligible for a discount

Opportunities

Leveling the playing field

One way to level the playing field is to expand transformational agreements to include lower-income countries. APCs should be moved to the level of organizational or funder agreements, not one-off author payments.

Role of scholarly societies

By educating their members on OA benefits and options available to them, scholarly societies can serve as pivotal change agents.

Collaboration is key. The focus is shifting toward addressing structural issues to eliminate inequality.

The growth of open access articles funded by transformational agreements

Source: ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry

Threats

Funding decisions

The way governments and funders allocate resources can either bridge or deepen research inequalities.

R EALITY CHECK:

Authors in lower-income countries are often left out of equity conversations. This can lead to a lack of understanding about what they really want or more importantly, need.

Helicopter research

Funding disparities have led to ‘helicopter research,’ where authors from higher-income countries overshadow those from lower-income countries.

Deep dive

Our white paper examines these complexities and highlights how we are taking actionable steps to make OA publishing equitable.

Learn more
Diver