Supporting open access publishing for books: myth-busting webinars event summary - Research

"As part of our work with UKRI to support the implementation of the UKRI open access policy for monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from 1 January 2024, we re-visited some of the key areas of concern for researchers that surfaced during the consultation period for the policy (see UUK Open access and monographs. Evidence review and Open access and monographs: Where are we now? A position paper by the British Academy).

There was a clear need for a focused period of engagement with key stakeholder groups such as researchers/academics across all career levels, librarians/scholarly communication managers, research offices, and rights holders, with the aim being to split the real issues from the perceived problems. As a result, we collaborated with a number of UK university presses and the Open Access Books Network to hold a series of webinars on the subject of the myths around open access for books, as well as to address legitimate concerns and suggest ways to remove barriers to open access publishing.

We held three 90-minute webinars, each consisting of three short presentations from a panel including authors, publishers, open access publishing support services and policy makers. These were then followed by a Q&A session where audience questions were invited. All sessions were chaired by an expert in the field of open access.

The opening session set the context and covered the key themes, and this was then followed by more focused sessions covering specific areas in more detail. You can find all the event recordings, transcripts, presentations, and our panels’ responses to the questions we didn’t have time to cover on our Events webpage and also via the links below...."