Open Access Policy in the UK: From Neoliberalism to the Commons | Stuart Andrew Lawson | thesis, University of London | 2018 [July draft]

"...Chapter 1. Introduction

Open access means making scholarly research freely available online for people to read with minimal restrictions on access and reuse (Eve 2014: 1; Suber 2012: 4).1 This simple definition masks a wealth of complexity, and open access is a concept that has had a notable impact on the way scholarly research is communicated and provoked a wide variety of responses from different stakeholders. In particular, the political aspects of open access, although often foregrounded in the popular perception of its intent, are under-theorized in the academic literature. This thesis is an attempt to address the political implications of open access and the implementation of open access policy. As will be made clear, open access has garnered support from both neoliberal ideologues and social justice activists (Eve 2017a: 55; Wickham and Vincent 2013: 6; see also Weller 2014: 156–59). So the focus of this thesis is on exploring the extent to which open access policy has been suffused with neoliberalism – how and why the ‘neoliberalisation’ of open access can be said to have occurred, explaining why this is important, and what steps may be taken as counter measures to work towards a non-neoliberal open access policy...."

Open Access Policy in the UK: From Neoliberalism to the Commons | Stuart Andrew Lawson | thesis, University of London

Doctoral thesis submitted for partial completion of a PhD in English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London

2018 [July draft]