The Business Blog @ Sunderland University Library

Open Access Week 2011 - The Business Case for Open Access

Today, I’m not recommending an Open Access(OA) resource as such, rather let’s consider the business case for OA…

Open Access rewards not only researchers and universities but also the UK economy as a whole. As a knowledge economy, the effectiveness of the UK’s research community – and the dissemination of that research – is essential to its success.

According to the Houghton report (January 2009), the financial return to UK plc from greater accessibility to research could result in an additional £172 million per year of benefits from government and higher education sector research alone. This is on top of the £80 million saving UK higher education could make by shifting from toll access to open Open Access publishing.

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital to a vibrant economy and these businesses, in particular, find it difficult to access the research papers they consider to be crucial sources of information for their work. Recent research shows that cost is the biggest single barrier when SMEs attempt to access research papers. Open Access will directly address this and so help to stimulate the innovation the UK needs.

Neil Jacobs¹ (JISC programme manager, Innovation Group) has said:

“Open Access is absolutely crucial right now. Getting out of recession is going to be based on innovation, it’s going to be based on the private sector having access to the outputs from the public research base and being able to use that to innovate and to compete much more effectively in the global economy. To do that it will need to have access to research outputs.”

For more information, videos and podcasts on the business case for OA, check out the JISC website: http://bit.ly/5bwl5J .