https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/open-access-75-q3-what-your-experience-...
In my latest message yesterday I noted: 'The biggest disincentive for researchers is the APC or author processing charge. In some journals this can be several thousand dollars. What works and what doesn't work in paying these APCs? How can they be made more affordable?'
'Earlier this year, for example, the Gates Foundation announced a new open access policy whereby they have stopped paying APCs. Instead, they direct researchers to post their research as preprints.'
You can read more about the Gates Open Access Policy here:
https://openaccess.gatesfoundation.org/open-access-policy/
Here are extracts:
'Effective January 1, 2025, this policy has been expanded to apply to all published research funded, in whole or in part, by the foundation (“Funded Manuscripts”). The Open Access policy also applies to any data underlying the Funded Manuscripts... to continue our mission to improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable populations...
'It is the foundation’s expectation that Funded Manuscripts shall be shared promptly in the form of a preprint...
'The Foundation Will Not Pay Article Processing Charges (APC). Any publication fees are the responsibility of the grantees and their co-authors...'
In an accompanying video, Gates Foundation representative Ashley Farley says: "Grantees must publish their research as a preprint... Preprints are free to read and free to publish. They're also journal agnostic which means the research can be evaluated in its own merit and not the journal in which it's published... this allows for the research community to quickly respond and address any issues... which will thus make it more trustworthy... We are also stopping support for APCs... this is a critical step in achieving more equitable open access business models moving forward"
In my message yesterday, I said: "The subsequent journey of the paper [preprint], including editing and peer review (which would normally be done by a journal publisher through APCs), appears now to be unsupported. The Gates Foundation maintains that they do not want to support a dysfunctional system (with, as they see it, exorbitant APCs). But it's not clear yet whether the preprint approach will meet information needs any better (or worse) than the conventional journal approach."
I look forward to your comments.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org