Taylor & Francis input to UKRI Open Access Review

In February UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) launched a consultation on its Open Access Review. The following summary outlines the Taylor & Francis response to the consultation. You can also read our detailed answers to the consultation questions.

We support UKRI’s call for immediate access to research. Open Access (OA) has strong potential to increase the impact, effectiveness, and efficiency of research. We are making great strides: we have acquired leading OA publishers and platforms F1000 Research, Co-action and Dove Medical Press; we have converted over 50 journals to a full OA model; we have invested in developing article level workflows to support OA; and we are continuously exploring new open access models including new arrangements with institutions. As a result, OA has grown significantly across our portfolio and more than half of the UK research outputs published in our journals from 2016 to 2018 are already freely available.

We urge UKRI to focus on requiring immediate access only to the final published research output or version of record, with the certainty this OA route provides of research being trusted, validated, discoverable, curated and preserved in perpetuity. We believe that a permissive policy approach is the best way to achieve UKRI’s aims. Encouraging a diverse ecology will help support the development of innovative models and diversification of existing models, will accelerate the growth in OA and will allow new entrants to join the research communication ecosystem, encouraging competition. As we have outlined in our response, the zero embargo Green OA route is an unsustainable mechanism that implies creation of content that is not paid for. This actually runs counter to UKRI’s long term aspirations around opening up research outputs.

We encourage future OA policy in the UK to support a variety of publication venues, including those most preferred by their communities, irrespective of their open access model, as they are the vehicles that drive research, being used and trusted by their communities. We are exploring options for hybrid journals other than the APC-OA model that will allow them to make their publications more widely available. We are keen to explore with UKRI, other funders, and researchers how we can best support these journals as they move to OA, and how we can offer sustainable publication venues across disciplines.

We believe that ensuring support for learned societies and professional member organisations is crucial to sustaining the quality, independence and trust in UK research. These bodies advocate for specific important issues, foster collaboration, and coordinate globally around key initiatives. They champion public engagement with research and are increasingly orienting the focus of research in their disciplines towards real world challenges.

We understand that cost effectiveness and value for money are key drivers for UKRI. The strong evidence we have submitted aligns with these objectives: an effective, reliable and quality service which provides open access to the version of record in terms of increased citation, usage and attention, compared to versions behind the paywall. OA content on our platform Taylor & Francis Online attracts more usage and more attention than that behind a paywall[1]. Open access, appropriately funded and resourced, benefits all stakeholders.

We believe that rapid open access to quality assured research, effectively disseminated, needs the input of a strong publishing sector to be successful. We believe that UKRI has a key role to play in fostering this diverse ecology, including supporting emerging models around OA. This keeps us as professionals innovating and competing, and ensures that UK research retains its global reputation for excellence.

We support an Open future.

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Read our full set of answers to the consultation questions

Read the F1000 Research response

[1] Articles published Open Select with Taylor & Francis typically receive over 6 times as many downloads* and 32% more citations** compared to those that are not published Open Select.  *Usage in 2017-2019 of articles published in 2015-2019.  **Citations received up to Jan 31st 2020 of articles published in 2015-2019 in journals listed I n Web of Science®.