National licence mooted to free up research access | News | Times Higher Education

"The government should consider negotiating a national licence with publishers that would give access to academic research to anyone with a UK internet connection. That is the proposal floated in a Higher Education Policy Institute 'occasional paper', launched on 31 March, entitled “Open access: is a national licence the answer? and written by David Price, vice-provost for research at University College London, and Sarah Chaytor, head of public policy in his office. The idea of a national licence was dismissed in a single paragraph in 2012’s landmark Finch Report into open access. Noting that Iceland was the only country to have adopted such a scheme, it said a UK version was 'unlikely to be practicable, and the costs would probably be high'. The report’s alternative recommendation for the UK to steer a course towards universal journal-provided gold open access was accepted by the government and funders. The Hepi paper acknowledges that some progress has been made in that direction ...'