Who Should Pay for Open Access in the Humanities - 26 June 2024

Almost everyone agrees that Open Access to research is a good idea. The way it has developed, however is very expensive, especially in the humanities.
In scientific disciplines the average cost of an Article Processing Charge to publish an open access journal article is around £2000. Humanities research, by contrast, is often published in more long form formats, monographs and books, where the cost can often be much higher, perhaps £6000 or even £10,000. Typically, there is also less funding available than in STEM.
Join us at this online event to discuss potential alternative models to pay for open access monographs in the humanities with Ros Pyne from Bloomsbury Open Collections and David Teira from the British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS).
The University of Leeds Library has recently signed up with Bloomsbury Open Collections which is a collective-action approach to funding open access books that aims to make open access publication available to a wider range of authors by spreading the cost across multiple organisations, while providing additional benefits to participating libraries.
The BSPSOpen initiative meanwhile, in partnership with the University of Calgary Press, has launched an open access monograph series at no cost for authors which aims to move towards a service model focused on how best to disseminate the results of scholarship to the most readers. Leeds Professor Helen Beebee from the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science is also a member of BSPS and has worked with David on the initiative.
Ros Pyne is Global Director, Research and Open Access at Bloomsbury.
David Teira is Professor of the Philosophy of Science at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia.