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Scientific Publications: Free for all?

: This afternoon has taken me back 25 years or more to a seminar on the philosophy of science, which I attended not as a scientist, but as a philosopher. The speaker was going to expostulate on quantum physics and explained that it was highly unlikely that we would be able to maintain our concentration throughout the afternoon, because the two people he would be telling us most about were called Plank and Bore. We have not had Plank or Bore this afternoon and we have managed to maintain our concentration throughout. However, whatever conclusions the House or the Government reach on whether the author should pay to publish, this afternoon has taught us one thing. Given that we have had three hours of debate, even though few hon. Members have spoken, politicians should perhaps pay to speak; that might keep speeches a little shorter. The Government's position on open access is that research funding authorities should have the discretion to provide the funds if the author prefers an open access route. The Government's aim is to allow the market to develop without institutional barriers being put in the way of any particular publishing model. As we made clear in our response to the Science and Technology Committee, we are happy to see publishers developing several business models, including subscriber pays, open access and hybrid approaches. That option will encourage competition and innovation in the publishing industry and in publishing models, as well as retaining freedom of choice for authors. It is in the long-term interest of a sustainable scientific publications market. I must congratulate the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who now chairs the Select Committee. He laid down several challenges and made several interesting points, to which I shall try to respond in my remarks. In particular, he said that it was essential for the Government to take the lead in funding and setting up open access because it would never get off the ground if they did not. I find it extremely refreshing to find a Liberal adopting such good old-fashioned socialist, centralist policies. The Committee's inquiry was valuable. It highlighted an important area for discussion, which is the need to ensure that as wide an audience as possible can avail itself of the results of publicly funded research. The debate also threw up the fact that there is a complicated range of interrelated issues for which no one solution is likely to be ideal. The Government must take that into account when they develop their policy on scientific publications. The issues that the Government must tackle include: the archiving of electronic material, because we must ensure that digital material is preserved for future generations; quality assurance, for which peer review is vital; and value for money. Most press interest has centred on what is commonly referred to as open access publication. Publication of science is a key part of the scientific process. At present, with the dominant business model, a subscription payment is required, usually from a university or institutional library or from the commercial and industrial sectors, which the Committee acknowledged in ““Scientific Publications: Free for all?””"““contribute significant funds to the publishing process””." However, is that the most cost-effective, or fairest, way to distribute scientific knowledge? An alternative model, which is known as open access, requires the author to pay to publish an article in a scientific journal. In practice, however, the institution or a research council would probably pay, not the author. The article would then be free to view on the internet. There has been much debate about the current subscription model. Hon. Members have spoken about the perceived dominance of publishers and about diminishing library budgets. Proponents of the current subscription model argue that open access would ensure that scientific publications would be available to all as soon as they were published. That would be useful for people who are on career breaks, for example. However, opponents argue that many journals already provide such access and that the current open access business models are unproven and unsustainable. The Government's position on open access is that we need to ensure, as we have heard from many quarters, a level playing field in order that research funding authorities can have the discretion to provide the funds if the author prefers an open access route. Given the uncertainty with current business models, that position is the most appropriate in order to encourage competition and innovation in publishing models and to retain freedom of choice for authors. It was not only instructive but enlightening—as is usual with my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North—to find that this debate came about as a result of a bar-side chat that he had with Lord Eatwell that focused on the unsupportable cost of scientific journals. There was, however, a lacuna somewhere in the argument that was made that publishing journals and learned societies were charging too much. The other assertion that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North made was that the reason that the Government did not want to go down the open access route was because it would cost more. While on some points that my hon. Friend made, I shall challenge one calumny that he may have perpetrated on the Royal Society of Chemistry, albeit unwittingly. Hansard will show that he considered the RSC's position to be that poor countries did not wish to be patronised by the RSC making available its information free of charge. In fact, the RSC does make its information available free of charge but considers that developing countries' scientists may not wish to be patronised by having author fees waived in an author pays system. That was conveyed to me before this debate. Scientists in developing countries would want to have their work received on merit and on an equal basis. Although the UK's research budget may be able to pay for authors in this country, as the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) remarked, it may be much more difficult for a scientist in Malawi, or in another developing country, to receive the same support.