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 of productivity is more than 50% above the world average. Moreover, citations to UK articles increased between 2006 and 2010 by 7.2% a year, faster than the world average of 6.3%. Hence the UK share of global citations rose from 10.5% to 10.9%; and its share of the top 1% of most-highly-cited papers was second only to the US, at 13.8% in 2010.

4.4. It is notable also that the UK research base is highly mobile: there is considerable movement both to and from the UK, and part of the explanation for the UK’s success is that it attracts internationally-mobile researchers. UK researchers are also more likely than those in almost any other major research nation to collaborate with colleagues overseas: almost half (46%) of the articles published by UK authors in 2010 included a non-UK author.

Communication and Access Routes

4.5. A report in 2011 estimated that universities in the UK spent £112m on subscriptions to journals, a further £52m on managing and providing access to them, and £11m on article processing charges for open access journals. For the UK as a whole, expenditure on subscriptions is estimated to be £150m. For individual universities and other institutions, the expenditure on such items represents a major element in their total expenditure on libraries. Indeed, other elements of library expenditure have been squeezed in order to sustain journal subscriptions, in a context where library budgets as a whole have been under pressure. The proportion of overall university expenditure devoted to libraries fell from 3.5% in the mid-1990s to 2.7% in 2009. Nevertheless, the figures represent a small fraction of the UK’s total expenditure on research and development (£25.9bn in 2009-10) or of Government expenditure (£10.4bn) or even of the expenditure of the Research Councils and Higher Education Funding Councils (£5.5bn).

4.6. In return for these expenditures, access to the research literature is provided via a number of routes. The great majority of journals are still published under the subscription model, and access requires the purchase of a licence. Licences are also required for access free at the point of use to e-books, while print books are of course purchased. Other routes include various PPV or transactional mechanisms; and material that is available in open access journals or via repositories.

4.7. The growth of provision to underpin open access – both through repositories and through open access journals – has been significant over the past decade; but it is