Sarah Stewart: A broken promise

“I am afraid I have to admit I have broken a promise that I made a couple of years ago.  Exactly two years ago I promised that I would only submit articles for publication in open access journals. The reason for this was that I am very committed to making research openly and freely available to everyone, especially colleagues who live in resource-poor countries. But the reality has been more difficult that I thought it would be... There are several reasons why it has been difficult to publish in open access journals. The main reason is because there are so few suitable, quality open access journals for midwives and nurses to publish research. This is concerning for me as a midwifery academic, especially in view of the pressure put on me to publish in ‘top rated’ journals. I want to support open access journals, but at the same time, I have to think about my academic career progression, which highly driven by publications, as far as universities are concerned.  I have also turned down requests to write opinion pieces in magazine-type journals, which  are not open access. But I do wonder if I have shot myself in the foot by taking this decision. If the greater midwifery audience reads these types of journals, how can I get any message across if I do not engage with them? How do you balance deeply held beliefs with every day pragmatics?  For all my angst, I think the future is looking very good for open access journal publication. Only the other day,Harvard announced it is encouraging its staff to publish in open access journals because it cannot afford the incredibly expensive journal subscriptions it pays. Another glimmer of hope is the Australian Health Research Council has mandated that any research it funds must be made freely available within a year of publication, as from July 2012.   As for nursing and midwifery, the time is ripe to start exploring how to support open access research publication. Any ideas?