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 6. Success Criteria

6.1. Our consideration of how best to meet the goal of increased access to published research results and findings in the environment we have described earlier in this report is built around a number of possible mechanisms, and a series of criteria against which to judge their likely success. The success criteria start from a common set of assumptions: that increases in access to the quality-assured findings of research conducted in the UK and across the globe will bring benefits to the UK economy and society of the kind set out in Section 3 above. The criteria themselves therefore describe in outline developments in or features of a research communications system that meets those ends. We discuss each of them in this section, before moving on to a consideration of the possible mechanisms. We are also aware that the criteria differ in kind. Those relating to increases in accessibility (A, B and C) and to high-quality research and services (G and H) describe outcomes in line with our core objectives. Those relating to costs, affordability and financial health (D, E, and F) are matters for attention in the process of developing a sustainable system of expanded access.

A. More UK publications freely accessible across the world

6.2. We noted earlier that UK researchers published over 123,000 peer-reviewed articles in journals in 2010, along with large numbers of monographs, reports, conference proceedings and other publications. No systematic attempt has been made to estimate the number of those articles that were immediately made accessible free at the point of use across the world; or even the number that are now accessible in that way. But the analysis in Sections 3 and 4 makes clear that only a relatively small proportion are accessible in any format on open access terms, and even then in many cases after a delay; and that while subscription-based access to major publications is provided to members of well-endowed research institutions, licensed access for other organisations and individuals, especially those outside the HE sector, is relatively meagre.

6.3. In order to meet this criterion, a greater proportion—preferably all—of those publications (including those written in collaboration with researchers in other countries) must be made accessible free of charge to anyone, anywhere in the world, who has access to the internet. The key aim, therefore, is to ensure that the results of research conducted in the UK—particularly if that research is publicly funded—should be freely accessible to the individuals and organisations anywhere in the world who may have an interest in them.

6.4. This criterion could in principle be met by a number of different mechanisms, or variants or combinations of them: through peer-reviewed open access or hybrid journals; through institutional or subject-based repositories; or through extensions to licensing (though the UK has little influence on licence arrangements overseas). Different mechanisms would have varying implications as to the version of the published findings that would be freely available; how easy it is to find them, and