A position paper by the British Academy, published 17 May 2018.
Recent announcements about a requirement that monographs submitted to REF2027 should be made available open access have been met with expressions of concern, including from many Fellows of the British Academy. Monographs are a crucial form of academic dissemination in the humanities and social sciences, and the preservation of a sustainable future for this medium is a matter of acute interest to the British Academy.
A new dialogue on the development of workable policies for extending open access to academic monographs now needs to begin, and the British Academy stands ready to contribute to those discussions. The issues which the Academy believes need to be considered – particularly those concerning money, exceptions, timing, and transparency – are laid out in the following paper.