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Beyond Mandates: Fostering a Culture of Open Access Book Publishing
Thu March 6, 2025 @ 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm GMT
Attempts to incentivise open access for books have, to date, largely centred around policy interventions that mandate publication in open formats and venues. Today we have OA book policies from funders in the UK, Netherlands, Austria, Norway, Ireland, and Portugal; and the Council of the EU has said that for publicly funded research, open access should be “the norm” for monographs as well as articles.
But the big stick of mandates can be a blunt instrument and very often add a heavy compliance burden on scholars and HE institutions. A more effective and lasting avenue to OA for books might be to embed open research and publishing cultures within universities and more widely. But currently, HEIs often incentivise closed access publishing (deliberately or passively) by cleaving to the status quo in terms of recognising career advancement and in terms of publishing venues and how those venues are supported. How might this paradigm be shifted towards openness?
This session will feature short presentations from expert scholars, librarians and publishers, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A. We will address these central questions: how can we incentivise researchers to publish their books OA? How can institutions signal more strongly that publishing openly should be important, and reward those who do so? How might a culture of open research be fostered within and beyond the book publishing process?
Changing the way the sector approaches reward and recognition for scholars could be a big driver for change in open access book publishing – going beyond mandates to offer positive reasons to embrace openness.
Join us for this online event, presented in partnership by Copim and the Knowledge Equity Network. Featuring contributions from guest speakers, Lucy Barnes (Senior Editor and Outreach Coordinator, Open Book Publishers), Gavin Beattie (Associate Director: Research & Impact, Libraries & Collections, King’s College London), Jill Claassen (Section Manager, Scholarly Communication & Research, University of Cape Town), Kevin Sanders (Open Access Engagement Lead, Open Book Collective) and Chaired by Sally Dalton (Head of Library Research Services: Open Research, University of Leeds).
