Why is Government Funded Research Not Freely Available?

The Trump administration is considering a proposal to require all published research that has received federal funding to be made immediately available to the public at no cost. You would think that making our published science available for free would garner applause, but you would be wrong.

Various stakeholders, to be discussed in a moment, believe that we should wait 12 months before this research becomes freely available. What's up with this?

The most prominent stakeholders are the journals where these materials are published and live behind a paywall for those 12 months; during that period, you need to have a subscription to read the articles. I have written before on this topic, but the bottom line is that journal publication is a big, big business with margins that any company would love to have. A coalition of 125 journals and that includes the best, and brightest believe that this move towards open access would

"effectively nationalize the valuable American intellectual property that we produce and force us to give it away to the rest of the world for free."

Since the world can access the material in a year's time, the keyword is free. Elsevier, probably the biggest of the bunch, realizes a 36% profit on its revenues. Journals make money from subscriptions because of these 12 months of protection; for a scientist, seeking to remain current, you have to read the current literature, not the 12-month-old stuff. According to the journals

"Going below the current 12-month "embargo" would make it very difficult for most American publishers to invest in publishing these articles."

Let me remind you of their business model,

"Scientists create work under their own direction – funded largely by governments – and give it to publishers for free; the publisher pays scientific editors who judge whether the work is worth publishing and check its grammar, but the bulk of the editorial burden – checking the scientific validity and evaluating the experiments, a process known as peer review – is done by working scientists on a volunteer basis. The publishers then sell the product back to government-funded institutional and university libraries, to be read by scientists – who, in a collective sense, created the product in the first place."

So other than editors and printing, what exactly are the journal's costs?

There is another stakeholder likely to be financially gored by this proposal, the professional associations. And that includes the American College of Surgeons to which I am a member. [1] A portion of our dues goes to the publishers who then provide us with the journal – we pay for the privilege of keeping up with our profession and providing a subscription audience to the publications that they use to attract advertisements. We are not the only ones that pay; in fact, my contribution is minuscule compared with the millions of dollars that colleges and universities pay for journal packages for their libraries. And the journals have taken a page out of Hollywood's monopolistic star system of the '30s and '40s where they require you to take some journals of lesser interest if you want the blockbusters.

The journals warn that these rules would place "billions of dollars of new and additional burden on taxpayers." But of course, taxpayers and citizens through tuition already pay colleges' and universities' journal subscriptions.

Paper is mostly a renewable resource; for those concerned, it contributes about 0.5% to our carbon footprint and serves as a carbon sink. So maybe we should continue to produce those journals. Or perhaps we should bring the journals entirely online and eliminate all their material costs. It may be renewable, but for most individuals, once you read a journal, it either sits on a shelf as a carbon sink or is contributed to the landfill. The best form of renewable is not to consume; it is time to reconsider the role of paper journals. As I wrote in my original essay,

"Dismantling and repurposing scientific communication will be no easier than understanding and controlling drug costs. Mandating free access by government funders is a step in the right direction, but a company with a 36% profit on revenues will not give up control easily."

You are just beginning to see the battle.

[1] The letter written to the administration can be found here.

Sources: Trump might help free science that's locked behind paywalls (Vox) and Science groups, senator warn Trump administration not to change publishing rules (AAAS).