Over a third of UK-authored research available immediately via OA | The Bookseller

Thirty-seven per cent of UK-authored research articles were made freely available to the world immediately on publication last year, via Open Access, according to a report from Universities UK's Open Access Co-ordination Group.

Meanwhile a total of 53% of UK-authored research articles in 2016 were available after 24 months, a research report, titled "Monitoring the Transition to Open Access", found.

The UK's totals far outweigh the global figures, which show just 24% of research freely available immediately and 32% after 24 months.

The report found overall spend on Article Processing Charges (APCs) rising, as well as APC prices, with the mean average APC payment rising from £1,699 in 2013 to £1,969 in 2016, a 16% rise. Expenditure on APCs is rising faster than expenditure on subscription, the report found. Tracking expenditure for a group of 10 universities and a sample of seven publishers, the expenditure on subscriptions rose 20% over the four-year period (from £13.4m to £16.1m), but expenditure on APCs rose fourfold, though from a much smaller base (from £689,000 to £2.7m). Total expenditure across subscription and APCs rose by nearly one third (from £14.1m to £18.8m).