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 * xiv. Discuss with representative bodies in the public, business and voluntary sectors the feasibility of developing licence agreements that provide access to relevant journals and other content across key parts of those sectors; and possible ways of funding such agreements. (Government, publishers).


 * xv. Examine the feasibility of providing licensed access to journals for small research-intensive enterprises with which universities have close relationships. (universities, publishers, JISC Collections)


 * xvi. Continue to work with representatives of public libraries to implement the proposal to provide walk-in access to the majority of journals in public libraries across the UK, and to ensure that the initiative has the maximum impact. (publishers, British Library)

Key actions: repositories


 * xvii. Continue to develop the infrastructure of repositories and enhance their interoperability so that they provide effective routes to access for research publications including reports, working papers and other grey literature, as well as theses and dissertations; a mechanism for enhancing the links between publications and associated research data; and an effective preservation service. (funders, universities, JISC, publishers)


 * xviii. Consider carefully the balance between the aims of, on the one hand, increasing access, and on the other of avoiding undue risks to the sustainability of subscription-based journals during what is likely to be a lengthy transition to open access. Particular care should be taken about rules relating to embargo periods. Where an appropriate level of dedicated funding is not provided to meet the costs of open access publishing, we believe that it would be unreasonable to require embargo periods of less than twelve months. (Government, funders, universities).

5. Costs

There will be additional costs during a period of transition which may last for several years; but we cannot be certain about the total costs of all the measures we recommend, particularly with regard to open access publishing. Our estimates are best available evidence at present, including average levels of APCs currently being paid by the Wellcome Trust. But any calculations as to costs for the future depend on a series of assumptions as to


 * the pace of change towards open access publishing, and in particular the extent to which the UK is on average ahead of the rest of the world


 * the average level of APCs as more journals adopt the open access model


 * the number and proportion of articles with overseas as well as UK authors for which UK funders and institutions would be required to pay a full APC


 * the extent to which during the transition universities and other organisations are able to reduce their expenditure on subscriptions even as their expenditure on APCs rises.

We recognise that there is considerable room for debate about assumptions on all these issues; and that variations in them could bring significant changes in our estimates, both upwards and downwards.

Much depends on how quickly the rest of the world moves towards open access. There are good reasons to believe that there is international momentum in this direction, but it is