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and attitudes of researchers both as producers and consumers of the information that journals contain. The UK has been in the lead in both developments. It is a global centre for the publishing of research; publishers based in the UK are responsible for over five thousand journal titles, and a fifth of the articles published globally each year. The UK’s prominent position derives in part from its long tradition of publishing by learned societies, and more recently the development of close relationships between them and other publishers. UK publishers in both the commercial and the not-for-profit sectors were among the first to make full-text articles available online in the 1990s; and they have remained at the forefront of innovation. They make a significant contribution to the British economy, to export earnings, and (not least through the surpluses used by learned societies to fund their scholarly activities ) to the performance and standing of the UK research community.
1.5. UK researchers have also been among the leaders in taking advantage of the enhanced provision of e-journals: it is estimated that the number of downloads by readers in UK universities has been growing at over 20% a year,[1] and the UK research community has led key initiatives in developing new ways to exploit the benefits of new technologies. But while welcoming the increases in access to a larger number of journals and articles than ever before—at any time of day, anywhere where they have access to the internet—researchers want more. They want to be able to use the latest tools and services to enable them to analyse, organise and manipulate the content they find, in order to help them work more effectively in their quest for new knowledge; and the broader benefits that wider, faster access would bring.
1.6. Moreover, while researchers working in universities or large research institutes have enjoyed significant increases in access, others—including researchers working for organisations that cannot afford to purchase licences for large packages of journals but also the growing range of non-specialists who are interested in the results of research—have not seen the same fruits of increases in access. Indeed, they can find it difficult to secure access to research literature without paying up to £20 or more for ‘pay-per view’(PPV) access to a single article.
1.7. The principle that results of research that has been publicly funded should be freely accessible in the public domain is a compelling one, and fundamentally unanswerable. Effective publication and dissemination is essential to realising that principle, especially for communicating to non-specialists. How to achieve that in a sustainable way in an internet world is the key challenge that this report seeks to address. This report therefore considers how the research communications system might evolve so that access to research publications might be increased, with the aim of maximising the benefits arising from the investments in research and from the work of researchers.
- ↑ E-journals: their use, value and impact: final report, Research Information Network, 2011.
