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Scientific Publications: Free for all?

First, I congratulate you on being elevated to the Chairmen's Panel, Mrs. Dean. It is a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon. As a mere northerner, I have always regarded the golden triangle as having all the research. As we have now heard, it also has much of the publishing ability. It was a great privilege to listen to the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), and I welcome his contribution to the debate. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said in his introduction that this is a controversial topic. He is, of course, absolutely right, but he ain't seen nothing yet. The previous Committee produced quite a lot of interesting reports, some of which caused controversy, like this one, but we will really see the sparks flying when the subject of human reproductive technologies and the law reaches the Floor of this Chamber or the main Chamber. I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate on scientific publications, especially in the light of rapid developments and the publication of the Government's response to our report, which has caused some difficulties. Given that I will mention learned societies, I should declare a registered interest in that I am a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and one of its two honorary advisers in the House. The ideal would be to make all scientific publications available to everyone on the internet at no cost either to the user or to the author, which would, as hon. Members have said, be of enormous benefit to those working in developing countries who do not have access to many of these publications in either hard copy format or in e-publication format because of their excessive costs. It is the policy of learned societies such as the RSC to make all their publications freely available to those in developing nations, as the hon. Member for Wantage said. Every article published in RSC journals that are more than two subscription years old, but unfortunately dating back only to 1997, is already freely available in digital format. However, the RSC intends to digitalise as far back as it can go. That will cost, however. As hon. Members have said, nothing is for free; somebody must pay for it. There are those who believe that open access publishing would put at risk the future of learned societies and even commercial publishing houses, especially if neither the user nor the author pays. There is considerable profit to be made from scientific publishing in the commercial field. As has been said, up to half of the world's peer-reviewed journals are published by or on behalf of commercial journals, learned societies and other not-for-profit organisations. Peer-reviewed journals are much less expensive and are cited more often by other authors than most, but not all, commercial journals. I agree that the publication of journals—with an estimated turnover of £2 billion—contributes significantly to the UK economy. That figure represents 25 to 30 per cent. of the world market. In other words, we are punching well above our weight. Sixty to 80 per cent. of that £2 billion turnover comes from export earnings. The hon. Member for Wantage said that export earnings total £100 million, but I think that the figure is closer to £750 million. Scientific journals are a considerable export earner for the United Kingdom economy. Some 85 per cent. of the Royal Society of Chemistry's authors and 90 of its customers live outside the UK. In that case, as in the case of other learned societies, profits are used for several charitable functions. The Royal Society of Chemistry comes second only to the Government in providing educational facilities for chemistry teachers in schools and in higher and further education. The user pays model for journal publications is still by far the most common model used, although many journals charge both for the author to publish and for the user to read a journal. Individual members of learned societies benefit from a considerably cheaper subscription than non-members and libraries, which probably pay the highest subscription cost. I want to go off-piste for a minute, Mrs. Dean. As a student and teacher in universities for 39 years, I saw many changes in the way in which we published our research findings. Incidentally, I am one of only two scientists who have published as an elected Member of the House of the Commons, the other being a scientist called Roscoe, who did much of his work in Manchester. It took me a long time to persuade the Royal Society of Chemistry to allow me to put MP after my name when I published two or three papers after I was elected in 1997. When I started to study chemistry seriously in the 1960s, there were few journals to choose from in which to publish. Most were published by learned societies. It was advantageous to become a member of organisations such as the Royal Society of Chemistry because that allowed me to publish free of charge. There were other benefits, too. I began my career by publishing in the Journal of the Chemical Society.