The covert censorship of Gold Open Access « The Policy Press Blog

"I support the principle of Open Access, i.e. that reports of research funded with public money should be available for any taxpayer to read. But I am worried that the planned implementation of this in the UK may lead to unintended censorship...  People often conflate censorship with redaction, where parts of a publication are blacked out or removed. This is one overt form of censorship, but there are also covert forms, which are more insidious because they’re less obvious.  I believe that Gold Open Access will lead to at least three different forms of covert censorship.    Gold Open Access will save institutions money because they won’t have to pay for expensive journal subscriptions.  However, in these days of cuts and squeezes, there are no guarantees that money saved will be used to cover the costs of staff who want to publish their research.  The existing cuts and squeezes are already causing some forms of censorship.  That could become much more widespread because, as a result of Gold Open Access, there is likely to be fierce competition for publication fundswithin academic institutions.  This is the first form of covert censorship, because any academic who loses such a competition will be unable to publish, regardless of the merit of their work.   Under the Gold Open Access approach, the cost of publishing an article is expected to be around £1,500, which is a significant sum even for institutions with sizeable research budgets.  And it is completely prohibitive for most individuals.  Therefore the retired academic, the unemployed academic, the postgraduate student, the practitioner-researcher, the independent researcher, will all be unable to publish their work in academic journals – which is a second form of covert censorship.  Researchers from outside academia can bring valuable perspectives.  Of course I would say that – I’m an independent researcher – but the academics who choose to work with me seem to agree.  So do journal editors, as it appears that around one in three authors of articles in academic journals are retired, unemployed, students, practitioner-researchers or independent researchers.  Therefore the move to Gold Open Access could also see some journals disappearing, as their submissions dry up from both academic and non-academic sources.  And that’s a third form of covert censorship."