Forget book deals if REF open access rules proceed, warn scholars

Humanities scholars could lose potentially career-making opportunities to publish their first book if proposed new open access rules for the UK’s next Research Excellence Framework are implemented, academics have warned.

For the first time in the REF’s history, those who wish to submit monographs or longer-form outputs to the national research audit must make them free to read within two years, under funders’ plans. Trade books will be exempted from the rules, but scholars have nonetheless raised concerns that cash-strapped humanities departments may be unable to provide funds for open access publishing, for which publishers can charge upwards of £10,000 a book.

“At a time when universities, publishers and individual academics are all under financial pressure, the decision to bring monographs into scope for open access raises many questions about how that will be funded, and whose monographs will be prioritised if money is tight,” said Catherine Fletcher, professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University.  

“This is a particularly pressing issue for early career researchers, who often write first monographs during several short-term contracts. Which institution will take responsibility in those cases?”

Those fears were echoed by Rory Cormac, professor of international relations at the University of Nottingham, who claimed the “cost of this [policy] is totally unaffordable for universities”.

“Whilst well-meaning, it will have all sorts of unintended consequences with huge implications for equality, diversity and inclusion,” explained Professor Cormac, who said it could lead to a “scenario where universities start rationing who gets to write books”.

Other scholars took to X, formerly Twitter, to express their dismay at the proposed new policy, which was announced on 18 March as part of a consultation that will run until mid-June.

Francesca Barry, an art historian at the University of Birmingham, wondered if “the aim is to destroy art history as a UK discipline”, explaining “UK universities will not or cannot pay the costs to publishers of publishing [open access] art history” – a subject where image rights holders will usually demand significant recompense if works are featured in a free-to-read format.

Meanwhile, Richard Carr, associate professor of public policy and strategy at Anglia Ruskin University, said the “dumb” policy would “lead to hundreds of thousands of pounds universities don’t really have being transferred to private publishers…and won’t achieve anything that mandating a free public facing blog or two outlining said output’s content/impacts wouldn’t”.

“There’s also a massive Oxbridge advantage here,” he added, noting that Cambridge University Press had “introduced free open access for all [University of] Cambridge-based academics publishing journal articles, and can presumably roll that over to books.” Universities without a publishing press would not be able to give their scholars that “leg-up”, said Dr Carr.

When UK Research and Innovation’s open access policy on books was introduced in January this year, those holding grants were invited to apply for funding of up to £10,000 from a new £3.5 million fund to cover publishing costs, but the new REF policy does not mention additional funding for the thousands of books likely to be submitted to the REF. Some 8,000 monographs were submitted to the 2014 REF.

However, Steven Hill, chair of the REF 2029 steering group, told Times Higher Education that “the proposed policy for monographs is permissive of a range of routes to open access, some of which have low or zero upfront costs.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com