How will Europe’s commitment to OA affect academic publishers?

“See the new EXANE BNP Paribas financial analysis, released yesterday. Excerpt: ‘In our view, this policy is unlikely to have any impact on STM publishers’ revenues in the next ten years. The EU is a small player in global research funding — it funds an estimated 8% of all public research spending in the EU27, or less than 3% of global scientific literature. We estimate that its funds lead to the publication of around 70,000 articles annually out of more than 1.5m globally. In addition, we note that the pilot project covering 20% of the EU research budget did not have any impact over the last five years. The new policy will apply to grants awarded from 2014 onwards (and hence on articles published from 2016 onwards) and reach 100% compliance only in 2020....’ Comment: I won't second-guess financial analysis from experts. But investors don't hesitate. When the EC announced its new OA plans, Reed Elsevier stock fell 2% in one day .  I was surprised to read that research funded by the EU (as opposed to EU members states) results in 70k papers/year. Research funded by the NIH results in 90k papers/year . I knew the NIH was the largest funder of non-classified research in the world, but I didn't quite grok that one US agency funded almost 30% more research than the EU. Perhaps much of the impact on academic publishers has already been priced in to their stock. Although it is still building compliance, the NIH has had a strong OA mandate in place since 2008.”