Author Perspectives on Open Access: What is Wiley doing to tackle inequality in open access publishing?
September 29, 2023
Over recent months, we’ve spoken to authors who have published their articles open access in a Wiley journal. During these conversations, we asked them why they chose to publish open access, whether it has had a positive impact, if they would recommend it to others and more importantly, the challenges or barriers they may have encountered.
We explore the key themes highlighted during the interviews and discuss what we’re doing to address these concerns.
Publishing open access improves dissemination and this is one of the main reasons authors choose open access.
‘I hope that my work reaches many different people, including researchers, governmental decision makers, and other interested readers. Even though it is not always easy to really keep track of this impact, the fact that many of my studies are open access is definitely helpful for wide dissemination. Being an agricultural and development economist, I do a lot of research with and about people in poorer countries, so it is particularly important to me that my findings are not hidden by financial or other barriers.’
Dr Martin Christoph Parlasca
Open access improves global equity when it comes to accessing research.
‘Open access is the first method to break down this barrier and provide 100% access to everyone, everywhere, instantly. By publishing open access, I now know that as soon as it is online, it is available in full all across the globe including within searchable databases like PubMed and google scholar. This means that my research has the potential to be read by more people, in more countries.’
Professor Warren Clements
Open access increases opportunities for global collaboration and interdisciplinary collaboration.
‘I firmly believe that science is a collaborative endeavor and that by sharing our findings openly and freely, we can accelerate progress and drive positive change on a global scale. Open access publishing represents a critical step towards achieving this vision. By providing unrestricted access to scientific research, regardless of geographic or socioeconomic barriers, we can create a more equitable and inclusive scientific community where all voices are heard and valued.’
Dr Nicholas Aderinto
Transformational Agreements (TAs) play an important role in making open access an option for more authors.
'The recent [transformational] agreement between Wiley and CAUL has provided me personally with access to this modern and progressive system. As soon as this was announced, I have chosen open access whenever it has met the CAUL criteria as I want my research to have the impact that I think it deserves. And, I want that impact immediately and to a broad audience.’
Professor Warren Clements
Open access promotes transparency and accountability and increases trust in the scientific community.
'[Open access] promotes transparency and accountability in the scientific community by making research findings openly available for scrutiny and replication. This can lead to greater trust in the validity of research findings and can foster more collaborations and partnerships in the scientific community.’
Dr Helen Onyeaka
More education and advocacy about open access is needed to increase participation and to help authors better understand the benefits of open access publishing.
‘There's an education piece as well, which I think needs to come from publishers, from universities, from funders, from governments all over the place to really make sure people are aware of open access and the benefits.’
Dr Michael Sy
Lack of funding or lack of awareness about funding for open access publishing is a barrier for authors.
‘As an African researcher, I am keenly aware of the funding challenges that can make open access publishing more difficult. In many parts of Africa, governments have not prioritized funding for scientific research, making it harder for researchers to access the resources they need to conduct their work. This lack of funding is particularly problematic when it comes to open access publishing, as many publishers require authors to pay fees to make their work freely available to the public. For many African researchers, these fees can be prohibitively expensive, creating a significant barrier to disseminating their research. To address this issue, African governments must increase their investment in scientific research and provide greater support for Researchers looking to publish their work openly.’
Dr Nicholas Aderinto
What is Wiley doing to address the challenges highlighted in this series?
We’re committed to breaking down the barriers that authors may encounter when publishing open access. Our ground-breaking agreement with the South African Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC) was unique among Wiley’s transformational agreements, in that it provided not only open access publishing and read access across Wiley’s whole portfolio, but also included an extensive author education element, the Wiley SANLiC Author Engagement Programme (AEP). Find further information about the SANLiC agreement and how it helps increase representation from researchers in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
Additionally, Wiley’s partnership with Research4Life enables authors in lower-income countries to publish open access, by providing automatic waivers and discounts on APCs in our fully open access journals. In 2022, as part of the Research4Life program, Wiley automatically waived the APCs for over 1,700 articles in our fully open access journals - and a further 150 articles received a 50% discount. In total, this amounted to $4.58 million in subsidies for authors in lower-income countries. You can learn more about our partnership with Research4Life in this podcast.
We are continuing to explore ways to tackle inequality in open access publishing and we look forward to working with all stakeholders to achieve these goals.
Read the full interviews from the Author Perspectives on Open Access series.
‘As an African researcher, I am keenly aware of the funding challenges that can make open access publishing more difficult. In many parts of Africa, governments have not prioritized funding for scientific research, making it harder for researchers to access the resources they need to conduct their work. This lack of funding is particularly problematic when it comes to open access publishing, as many publishers require authors to pay fees to make their work freely available to the public. For many African researchers, these fees can be prohibitively expensive, creating a significant barrier to disseminating their research. To address this issue, African governments must increase their investment in scientific research and provide greater support for Researchers looking to publish their work openly.’
Dr Nicholas Aderinto
