“2,5 pages of nonsense” – The STM statement on the Open Science Council conclusions

« On 28 May 2016, the International Association for Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) issued a response to the EU Competitiveness Council’s Conclusions on Open Science. Although welcoming the move to Open Science, STM noted its concern at a number of Conclusions which the Council has reached.

LERU’s Secretary-General, Prof Kurt Deketelaere, has already characterised, in a first reaction, the STM response as “2,5 pages of nonsense” and so they are. What the STM statement seems to object to is any change which impacts on the current role of traditional publishers. It makes unwarranted assumptions that the immediate move to 100% Open Access by 2020 must follow the Gold route and says that this is unsustainable financially. The Council Conclusions, however, do not pre-suppose that Gold is the sole route (orange is not the only fruit). However, LERU would point out that the Gold route would be more sustainable if all publishers offset the cost of Article Processing Charges (APCs) against subscription costs, thus saving money for universities. Some publishers do this, but not all do. (…) »