Open access publishing costs are increasing at Stockholm University
Stockholm University currently spends a larger part on open access publishing than on accessing scientific articles, according to the latest compilation of costs for open publishing by Stockholm University Library. Wilhelm Widmark, Senior Advisor for Open Science at the university, says, "It's positive that costs have been redistributed, but we still pay far too much."
As of today, Stockholm University Library pays for both reading scientific journals and publishing openly accessible articles at the university. Since 2016, the library has signed transformative agreements with major scientific publishers via the Bibsam Consortium, combining the cost of reading and publishing. The idea behind the transformative agreements was that they would be of a temporary sort, and publishers would have the opportunity to transition into a fully open publishing system by 2024. However, that hasn't happened.
Wilhelm Widmark is Library director and Senior Advisor to the President for Open Science at the university, as well as the vice-chair of the Bibsam Consortium, negotiating agreements with publishers.
Photo: Cecilia Burman
"If you look at how the number of open access articles has increased, the transformative agreements have been a success. But the purpose of these agreements was to push for a transition from subscription-based business models to a model based on open access, and today many publishers want to continue charging for both reading and publishing. Moreover, the overall cost increases every year on a national level, and that is not sustainable", says Wilhelm Widmark.
Increase in open access articles
Between 2018 and 2022, the percentage of immediately open access articles at Stockholm University increased from 45 percent to 79 percent, reaching 89 percent for the year of 2022 where the main author was affiliated with Stockholm University. The Swedish National Library's figures for the entire country show that the percentage of immediately open access articles increased from 39 percent to 70 percent during the same period.* Hybrid journals, which charge for both reading and publishing, saw the most significant increase both at Stockholm University and nationally—they more than doubled during the period.
The university library's compilation of costs for open publishing shows that the university is paying an increasing share for publishing, but on top of that, a significant share for reading as well. In 2022, the university paid 26.6 million SEK for the publication of open-access articles and 13.4 million SEK for reading scientific articles in e-journals.
Total costs for licenses and Open Access publishing at Stockholm University 2018-2022
Wilhelm Widmark participates in the working group "Beyond Transformative Agreements", appointed by the Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF), which recently proposed a strategy for transitioning from transformative agreements to a financially sustainable system that stimulates the ongoing transition to a fully open publishing system. Among the key points in the report, the group recommend for the Bibsam Consortium to only sign pure publishing agreements for completely open access journals. The recommendation is not to sign agreements that include hybrid journals, starting no later than 2026.
"The goal is a landscape where all scientific articles are openly accessible, and where we only pay for publishing, not for reading", says Wilhelm Widmark.
Text: Annica Wentzel and Julia Milder
*The National Library's figures for the entire country are based on the automated service Unpaywall, and Stockholm University’s own figures are checked manually, which may result in a discrepancy in the statistics. For Stockholm University, this involves an underestimation of open-access articles by 8 percentage points for 2022 in the KB statistics.
Facts behind the statistics
• Since 2018, Stockholm University's library (SUL) has paid for almost all the publishing of open access articles at SU. SUL pays for articles published within the transformative agreements and for individual articles outside the agreements in journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). SUL does not pay for open access in hybrid journals where there is no transformative agreement.
• SUL pays only for articles where the corresponding author is affiliated with SU.
• SUL allocates the costs of transformative agreements to reflect the number of publications with each publisher. If authors from Stockholm University publish a lot with a specific publisher, a larger part of the cost is accounted for as a publishing cost, and the remaining part as a reading cost.
• In 2018, SUL paid 10.2 million SEK for 621 articles. In 2022, the cost rose to 26.6 million SEK for 1 157 articles.
• For 2022, SUL paid fees for published articles to 50 different publishers. 87 percent of the costs went to the 10 largest publishers.
• 70 percent of the articles in 2022 were published in hybrid journals, which charge for both reading and publishing.
Read more about publishing support at SU
What does open access mean?
• Open access (OA) means that scientific publications are directly searchable and accessible on the internet in digital form, and that anyone can read, download, copy, and distribute the material.
• The main rule at Stockholm University is that research that is wholly or partially publicly funded should be as openly accessible as possible.
• Open access is part of the overall term open science, which aims to make science more transparent, accessible, and reusable in all parts of the research process.
Read more about open science at Stockholm University
Last updated: October 16, 2023
Source: Stockholm University Library