Dismayed by news that the Government has embraced the Finch Report findings, Mark Carrigan asks what will happen to authors and early careers researchers who have not yet secured a steady stream of funding and cannot pay the upfront fees required of gold open access

Carrigan, Mark

English

LSE Research Online

blo gs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impacto fsocialsciences/2012/07/17/finch-what-about-authors-who-cant-pay/by Blog Admin July 17, 2012What about the authors who can’t pay? Why the government’sembrace of gold open access isn’t something to celebrateDismayed by news that the Government has embraced the Finch Report findings, MarkCarrigan asks what will happen to authors and early careers researchers who have not yetsecured a steady stream of funding and cannot pay the upfront fees required of gold openaccess. Sometimes I worry that Twitter is an echo chamber, ref lecting my own prejudices back at meand shielding me f rom contrasting views. On other occasions though, I f ind this samecharacteristic immensely comf orting. Such as when reading that the government hasof f icially embraced the recommendations of  the Finch report and f inding that other PhD students and earlycareer researchers were just as dismayed by this news as I was. Leaving aside the broader issuespertaining to gold open access, which in practice simply redistributes costs within a broken system withoutchallenging the underlying commercial premise, there’s one particular question posed by this chain ofevents which is the cause of  my current dread about the f uture of  academic publishing: what about theauthors who can’t  pay?I f ear that academic publishing could come to resemble the perilous landscape that PhDs and ECRs areonly too f amiliar with at present. The competit ion f or postdoctoral f unding is ever increasing, leading tocontinual inf lation of  the things you need on your CV to stand a chance, yet without f unding it ’s verydif f icult to actually achieve these prerequisites. Or in other words: the best way to get postdoctoral f undingis to already have it. Could we see something similar happening with publications? If  authors are dependenton their institutions and/or f unding bodies to pay the substantial f ees required under gold open accessthen those who already have a job and f unding will f ind it easier to publish and thereby increase theirchances of  getting another job and more f unding. Much as the post doctoral f unding climate createsvirtuous cycles, so too will the publishing climate, as a whole swathe of  early career academics will f indthemselves untroubled by article processing charges. From their perspective, open access of  this f orm willbe great: it doesn’t pose problems and it means their research is f reely available. On the other hand, whatof  those who f ind themselves excluded? If  your f unding is patchy or non-existent how can you compete? Isit even going to be possible to be an independent researcher in any meaningf ul sense?In a climate where f reelance, part- t ime and f ixed term contracts are increasingly the norm within academia,the extent to which the government’s announcement is retrograde cannot be overstated. Such a radicalincrease in the dependence of  researchers upon their institution has prof ound consequences f or thosewho do ‘make it ’, leaving aside the many who seem likely to be wholly or partially swept aside f or thereasons discussed above. With f unding bodies increasingly f ocused around narrow priority areas, of tentied to short term polit ical whims to a truly abominable degree, themselves f alling into homology withpriority areas within universit ies, naturally aiming to increase their success in winning f unding f rom thesebodies, what becomes of  research that f alls into a non-priority area? What becomes of  independentresearch f ull stop? Will there be f unding available to cover author f ees? Will there be conditions attachedto it? How will the inevitable rationing work?Even assuming the best will and highest managerial acumen in the world, these yet unanswered questionspaint a picture of  the f uture university, which I f ind f ar f rom appealing. What of  the willingness to dissentand speak up at a t ime when economic instability looks set to continue indef initely? With academics evenmore reliant on universit ies, as one of  the two potential sources of  author f ees, will they be willing toresist? Or will the disciplining of  academic labour, already entrenched in multif aceted ways with manypersonal consequences, simply continue?Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Impact of Social Sciences blog, norof the London School of Economics.This post was originally published on Mark Carrigan’s personal blog, which you can read here. Related posts:1. The Finch Report on open access: it ’s complicated2. The Finch Report illustrates the new strategy wars of  open access3. Digital visibility is king but what colour is our Open Access f uture?4. Restricting online access: what evidence do publishers have to support their claims that open accessnegatively af f ects sales?5. Open access is not enough; we must learn how to communicate our research to make it trulyaccessible

What about the authors who can’t pay? Why the government’s embrace of gold open access isn’t something to celebrate

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online