British Academy’s vice-president for publications discusses the challenges of open access policies

As International Open Access Week begins, Professor Chris Wickham, vice-president for publications, discusses the challenges of open access policies in a new video.

The British Academy today also announces a new research project looking at the impact of open access policies on academic publishing, particularly focusing on humanities and social sciences (HSS). The research looks at three areas:

1. The half-lives of journals, discipline by discipline.


2. The degree to which different disciplines are involved in no-UK journal publishing, and the degree to which different countries are committed to moves towards open access in different disciplines.


3. The effect that different embargo periods would have on library acquisition policies.

The research is funded by HEFCE but independently managed by the Academy. The results of the research are expected to be available in early 2014, and will be used to inform Academy advice to HEFCE on how to pursue the implementation of open access in the post-2014 REF.

You can watch Professor Chris Wickham's Open Access video here.