Government was wrong to prioritise “gold” route for open access, say MPs

The UK government acted too quickly in favouring a “gold” model of open access that risked curbing access and increasing costs to universities, a committee of MPs has said.

The government and Research Councils UK (RCUK) should reconsider their current policies and review the evidence on how the alternative, “green” open access and repositories could help the United Kingdom move towards full open access, the House of Commons’ Business, Innovation and Skills Committee has said in a report published on 10 September.1

Last June the report of the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, led by the academic administrator Janet Finch, recommended that the best way to expand access to reports of publicly funded research was to adopt a system where the cost of publication …