This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.Scholarly publishing plays a key role in disseminating scientific and technical knowledge and
driving innovation. This paper argues that to manage the transition to the Open Access (OA)
model of scholarly publishing we need to understand better what enables, encourages and
inhibits the adoption of OA publishing among scientists, and to appreciate individual
differences within disciplines. The study adopts a psychological perspective to elucidate
motivations, capabilities and opportunities for OA publishing among bio-scientists in the UK.
To identify individual differences within the discipline we interview bio-scientists with
starkly different past practices for disclosing research data and technologies. Content analysis
of the interview data reveals that the sampled bio-scientists face similar obstacles and
enablers in their physical environment, but that their motivations and experience of their
social environments differ. One group is strongly motivated to adopt OA publishing - mainly
by their moral convictions and beliefs that OA benefits themselves, other scientists and
society - and feels peer pressure related to OA. The other group expresses fewer pro-OA
beliefs, holds beliefs that are demotivating towards adoption of OA publishing, but feels
pressure from research funders to adopt this form of publishing. Our quantitative analysis
reveals that the former group makes more frequent use of OA publishing compared to the
latter group, which suggests that only those with strong motivations will work to overcome
the obstacles in their social and physical environments. The individual differences within the
discipline suggest that bio-scientists are unlikely to respond to OA policies in the same way
and, thus, we question the appropriateness of one-size-fits-all OA policies. We show that
psychological analyses of scientists’ behaviour can inform the design of more targeted
policies and organisational interventions aimed at steering a transition to the OA model of
academic publishing.The empirical part of this research was funded by a UK Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC) Crosslinking Grant ES/F028180/1 awarded to David Castle, John Dupre
and Sabina Leonelli
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