Wissenschaftsrat | German Science and Humanities Council (2022): Recommendations on the Transformation of Academic Publishing: Towards Open Access
« Academic publishing has witnessed major changes in the context of digitalisation. Driven by the academic community, the changeover to open access (OA) for research results has greatly progressed over the last twenty years, even though it has by no means been implemented across the board. When the “transformation” of academic publishing is mentioned, this typically refers to changes in the business models driving the dissemination of academic publications, i.e. that you pay for publishing instead of for reading access. This paradigm shift is impacting the financial flows and roles of the stakeholders in the academic publishing system in a fundamental fashion.
Against this background, the German Science and Humanities Council (WR/the Council) has addressed the OA transformation of academic publishing. Its recommendations describe in more detail the goal of immediate and permanent OA to academic publications. Furthermore, the WR draws conclusions regarding the necessary institutional and financial framework conditions which must be established in order for this goal to be achieved. With its recommendations, the WR addresses researchers, scientific institutions, their management and research funding organisations, as well as libraries, whose tasks and self-concept have changed considerably as a result of the transformation. With this paper, the WR would like to contribute to the rapid progress of this transformation and improving the performance of the publication system for science and society.
In view of the continuous further development of publications as digital objects, the Council’s proposals remain committed to keeping the publication system open to further, currently unforeseeable, changes. (…) »
