Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe

Mathias Dewatripont, et al.
Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe (pdf 112pp)
Directorate-General for Research, European Commission, January 2006

Another bureaucratic study into journal prices? Peter Suber blogged the report on 4 March ("The report was not apparently released until today.")

From an OA perspective, attention has focussed on
RECOMMENDATION A1. GUARANTEE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY-FUNDED RESEARCH RESULTS SHORTLY AFTER PUBLICATION
which Peter reproduces, commenting:
"This is big. Recommedation A1 doesn't directly call for an OA mandate to publicly-funded research, but it does call for a "guarantee" of OA, asserts that OA archiving "could become a condition of funding", and proposes that a mandate is one action that "could be taken at the European level". If the authors are distinguishing a guarantee from a mandate, then I'd like to hear more about it. But "even" a guarantee would be extremely welcome. Moreover, the recommendation calls for OA "shortly after publication". I hope this report strengthens the final draft of the RCUK policy, triggers the adoption of OA policies at the national level across Europe, and increases the odds that the nascent European Research Council will mandate OA to ERC-funded research."

Peter also notes that the EC is soliciting comments on the report by June 1, 2006. It's fair to say that efforts are being made on behalf of OA to respond to RECOMMENDATION A1, starting with this amendment proposed by Stevan Harnad.

The report is much wider than OA, however, and the danger appears to be that it will be hard to focus attention on this one element. The broader context of the report, and the prospects for progress, were well outlined by Barry Mahon's posting:
"a recommendation from a study undertaken by the EC is hardly an indication that the "the EC too.... is moving toward"......

"The original call for tenders for the work was published in July 2003, the work commenced in June 2004, the results were released in 2006. The Commission says ­"[the report] was commissioned as a contriibution to on-going public debate on the conditions of access to and dissemination of scientific publications. There have been significant changes in the landscape over the last 30 years, in particular the rise of internet use".

"The press release accompanying the report contains an interesting sentence: "Given the scarcity of public money to provide accesss to scientific publications, there is a strong interest in seeing that Europe has an effective and functioning system for scientific publication that speedily delivers results to a wide audience". This remark does not sit easily with a sentence in the Executive Summary "[the report] first discusses the significant difference between this market and the "ideal perfectly competitive market". Beyond the key role of public funding of authors, referees and journal purchases, it is worth stressing that this is an intermediated market, where libraries are the key buyers, which leads to lower reader price sensitivity.""

"I doubt if this report will have much influence....."