Charting the history of open access policy for long form publications in the UK, Simon Kerridge argues that the most recent delay may herald an even more distant future for open access books.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the national system in the UK for assessing the quality of research in institutions of higher education – and it defines research as “a process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared”. Effectively shared. While there are many ways of sharing the insights from research, and the REF is very flexibility about what can be submitted as evidence, nearly 98% of the time outputs related to publications (journal articles, conference proceedings and books) are selected by submitting institutions. Personally, I would like to see an increase in the selection of non-traditional outputs for submission (reversing the trend in recent exercises), valuing (as the REF sub-panels do) research in all its forms, and hence have signed The Hidden REF 5% Manifesto. But that is an aside.

The REF is a powerful driver of change, love it or loathe it, it alters behaviours, at the individual, institutional, and national levels; and even to some extent internationally. After the Finch report (executive summary here) back in 2012 (see Stephen Curry’s post for a precís) and the subsequent response by the government “The government has announced that it will make publicly funded scientific research available for anyone to read for free, accepting recommendations in a report on open access by Dame Janet Finch.”, the direction of travel to an open access utopia was set. RCUK (as was) quickly followed with the Open Access policy (and funding) implemented from 2013.

The REF is a powerful driver of change, love it or loathe it, it alters behaviours, at the individual, institutional, and national levels; and even to some extent internationally.

However, the road is bumpy with many a tight turn, and it seems, some switchbacks.  It was of course far too late for REF2014 to impose any mandates based on Finch, however one was developed for the following exercise (HEFCE 2014/07), but restricted to journal articles accepted for publication after 1 April 2016, and with a number of allowable exceptions. The final guidance on submissions included a 5% tolerance, a very pragmatic way of mandating without putting undue pressure on submitting institutions. It also signalled the intention to require long-form outputs in subsequent exercises to be open access.

So, ten (yes ten) years ago it was announced that books to be submitted to the exercise after the next one would need to be open access. Back then, it was presumed (at least by me) that the next exercise would be 2020 (and the following one 2026) and hence books from 2020 onwards would need to be open access in order to be submitted. So, we had nearly six years’ warning. As it happens we gained a year… but it seems that seven years is not enough for some, in some ways academia is not exactly the fast paced environment that some might imagine.

Perhaps it was overlooked by institutions? This seems unlikely as there were of course reminders, such as in early 2018, “Open access monographs will be included in the REF 2027 – but how, is very much up for discussion. Steven Hill explains.”… “The intention declared in the consultation document comes into effect for long-form outputs published on or after 1 January 2021” and mid 2019 from Helen Snaith.

the proposal for when books would need to be published open access to be submissible to the REF is TWELVE years after the initial announcement.

In the wake of the 2021 exercise came the initial decisions and issues for further consultations for REF2028 (now REF2029), which promised a further consultation on the details of open access, this included “if not published as immediately open-access, in-scope longform publications must be made available to freely read, download and search no longer than 24 months after the date of publication”, and included various exceptions including “outputs published before 1 January 2026”.  So, the proposal for when books would need to be published open access to be submissible to the REF is TWELVE years after the initial announcement.

The response from the sector…?  Well the revised policy is “open access for longform outputs remains a key area of policy interest for the funding bodies but in response to sector concerns, and in recognition of the broad set of challenges currently facing the sector, there will be no longform open access mandate for REF 2029.” – I wonder exactly what those challenges are… and if 12 years is not enough, will another 3 help? “An open access requirement for submission of longform outputs will be in place for the next assessment exercise, with implementation from 1 January 2029“.

Some institutions, such as UCL, and to some extent my former institution, Kent, have made significant strides towards supporting open access for longform outputs; some others, not so much. I truly hope that longform open access will be rewarded in the people, culture, and environment section of the submissions. But, perhaps it is a step too far to suggest that sub-panels should be unable to award 4* in that section for submissions that do not show a commitment to longform open access!

It seems to me that UKRI and the devolved funding councils have missed an opportunity here. The REF is a huge driver for change, and the sector as a whole has seen benefits from what the REF rewards. For me open access is a no-brainer and academia has shot itself in the foot by allowing third parties to control a large part of the sharing of research findings – are research findings really “effectively shared” if they are behind a paywall, and why should that be different for books? Letting the implementation date slip sends entirely the wrong message and my worry is that it might happen again…

Simon would like to thank everyone who has helped him during his life, and for this article, Rebecca Fairbairn and in particular Steven Hill for reminders about the background documentation.

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