Licence by Licence, Funder by Funder Change Can Only Take Us So Far – ALLEA Highlights A Systemic Need for Change to Scholarly Publishing – Knowledge Rights 21

"In order to make research and science work for society we need to create a publicly owned community-controlled infrastructure. As we have seen since 2002, much of the impetus for this has come from the library sector – in a sense in a bottom-up movement. The research community itself has also invested in work to change specific policies and practices where they have stronger influence, such as over the rules around funding and author licensing.  This should not, however, take attention away from the need for a parallel, top-down approach to Open Access.  In other words, we should always remember the value of engaging with governments, given that legislative change can be a key trigger for meaningful change on the ground. After all, it goes without saying it is the copyright system – whose rules are set in legislation – which underpins scholarly publishing. As a result, in pushing for change that delivers Open Access, library trade bodies, funders and universities cannot afford to ignore this. Therefore, in addition to Knowledge Rights 21’s work around rights retention, we are also calling for legislated secondary publishing rights, and the creation of a European copyright system friendly to research and innovation. We also strongly welcome other legislative proposals coming from our community in this area. Notably, in 2021 LIBER launched a Pan-European Model Law for the Use of Publicly Funded Scientific Publications under the title #ZeroEmbargo...."