The final word from the Finch Group | Exchanges

"A final statement from the Finch Group has now been published, Accessibility, Sustainability, Excellence: A Review of Progress in Implementing the Recommendations of the Finch Report.  The Group reaffirms its support for a mixed economy for the foreseeable future with a transition towards Gold OA, and concludes that significant progress has been made. This view was based on detailed statements  from a wide range of stakeholders, a survey of practice in universities, meetings, and desk research. The Review accepts that much still remains to be done, and that key stakeholders should continue to work together. The final recommendation is that a formal co-ordinating structure should be established, convened by Universities UK, with three areas of focus: to secure dialog and engagement across all the stakeholders in research communications; to co-ordinate their work and avoid duplication or divergence in areas including development of the infrastructure, evidence-gathering, monitoring, and communications; and to deal with issues and problems as they arise. This would be a fitting legacy from the Group: we believe that progress is best made by consensus between all parties. A major test of this approach will be dealing with the concern among Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), especially those with a strong emphasis on research, that the Research Councils UK (RCUK) is not providing enough funding to pay for Article Publication Charges (APCs), given that subscriptions still have to be maintained for access to content from the rest of the world, which is largely favoring Green OA. To quote from the Review: ' … the discounts on APCs offered by some publishers, and the more general commitments from major publishers to avoid ‘double-dipping’, have all been welcomed.' With a hybrid journal, this means that all readers get the benefit of immediate access to the OA content funded by the producer, and subscribers also get some reduction in the subscription rate if the amount of subscription funded content in the journal drops. The institution funding these benefits, however, may feel very much worse off if it conflates payment of APCs and the  subscription. To quote again from the Review: 'All parties recognize both the significance and complexity of these issues.' We hope representatives of such parties can meet early next year to make a start on this and will continue to report on progress in Exchanges."