Limited Funding Hinders Charity Support Of Open Access Publishing

Charities’ need to justify expenditure to donors is preventing them from practising open access publishing despite supporting its aims, say new study in BMJ Open.

Open access — free at point-of-consumption — publishing of scientific research has grown in popularity in recent years and the UK has been leading the way. Last year open access publishing accounted for 40 per cent of British research output, double the world average.

In a study released today in BMJ Open, itself an open-access journal, Ellen Collins reveals that whilst publicly funded and large biomedical research funders are committed to open access publishing, smaller charities frequently find themselves financially incapable of doing the same.