This British Academy research project on the effects of current UK open access policies was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and was overseen by a Steering Committee set up by the Academy to manage the project. The project was led by Professor Chris Wickham, FBA (British Academy Vice-President, Publications), with support and co-writing from Dr Rebecca Darley and Dr Daniel Reynolds. It investigates some of the issues involved in open access publishing, seeking to examine various practical issues and difficulties that may arise, using the example of twelve disciplines across the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).
The key issues investigated were:
- the degree to which non-UK journals are ‘compliant’ with current UK open-access policies, particularly ‘green’ open-access policies;
- the differences between journal half-lives across the same disciplines;
- library acquisition policies and the degree to which these are affected by embargoes before articles are openly available.
