# Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications/Annex D: Grid of Success Criteria and Access Mechanisms

​ Annex D – Summary of Success Criteria and Mechanisms
| | More UK publications freely available globally | More global publications accessible in UK HE | More global publications accessible to non-HE | Financial health of publishers and learned societies | Costs to HE | Costs to research funders | Sustain high-quality research | Sustained or enhanced services to readers |
| Open access journals funded by APCs | Significant improvement in access to version of record beyond the HE and large corporate sectors, so long as the UK can establish effective funding arrangements | Only if there is a global movement towards publication in open access and hybrid journals | Significant improvement in access to UK publications; global publications only if there is a global movement towards open access. Navigation and discovery systems continue to be developed by publishers/secondary publishers | Transition costs; but potentially a sustainable business model for publishers so long as they can attract enough authors at a fee sufficient to meet their costs, along with a surplus for reinvestment, or for transfer to support society activities | Transition costs in setting up systems. Continuing costs (or savings) depend on level of APCs, extent to which UK in advance of rest of world, and payments for internationally co-authored publications. Winners and losers among universities, depending on how funders support OA, and how much research they produce without external funding. | Shift of costs between FCs and RCs in public sector. Additional costs for charitable funders. Wellcome estimates costs at c 1-2% of research funding | Incentives for innovation from publishers in services to authors. Incentives for universities and funders to promote quality over quantity in publications. Risk of reduct6ions in choice, and in the standing of UK research, if high status journals are too expensive or cannot make the transition to APCs. | Access to the version of record. Incentives for innovation and for new entrants to publishing market |
| Licence extensions | More access in UK, depending on the scope of the extension. | Significant improvement for less well-endowed HEIs if there are licences covering the whole HE sector, depending on how many titles are inside such agreements. Risk that national licences could reduce access to titles not covered by such agreements, including many associated with learned societies | Improvements, potentially significant, depending on amount of new funding provided; and (hence) on how many titles, and how many sectors of society/economy covered; whether access is via the desk top or via libraries | Increased revenues for those publishers/titles covered by extensions, at low cost (reduced transaction costs). Reduced ability to increase their revenues further through subscriptions in sectors where there is already a saturated market. Risks to publishers not covered by extended agreements. | Depends on trade-off between no. of titles covered, increase in subscription charges from publishers, and extent to which research-intensive universities prepared to subsidise rest of sector. | Possible request for funds to meet additional costs for HE sector. Extensions to other sectors will require funding from other public sources. | High-quality services to authors and peer review standards sustained. Some risk of increase in barriers for new entrants into the market, if there is reduction in competition for new customers. | Access to the version of record with full functionality. Sustained infrastructure of services for readers; but some risk of loss of incentives for innovation. |
| | More UK publications freely available globally Repositories | More global publications accessible in UK HE | More global publications accessible to non-HE | Financial health of publishers and learned societies | Costs to HE | Costs to research funders | Sustain high-quality research | Sustained or enhanced services to readers |
| Repositories | Significant improvement in access outside HE and large corporate sectors (but not necessarily to version of record with full functionality) through enforcement of funder and university mandates. Embargos on access may encourage publishers to support and facilitate deposit, but diminish utility for readers. Improvements in access to UK-authored grey literature. | Only if there is a global movement towards mandates and their enforcement. Embargos and restrictions on access to the version of record, with full functionality, diminish utility for readers. | Significant improvement in access to UK publications through enforcement of mandates; global publications only if mandates introduced and enforced overseas. Improvements needed to navigation and discoverability. Embargos and restrictions on access to the version of record, with full functionality, diminish utility for readers. | Risk to publishers and learned societies from subscription cancellations. Risks diminished through enforcement and length of embargos and restrictions on access to the version of record with full functionality. | Costs to individual institutions of sustaining repositories (costs of setting them up largely sunk, but need for continuing development). Sector costs (through JISC and others) of developing and sustaining UK infrastructure for navigation, preservation etc | JISC costs for infrastructure for navigation, preservation etc. | Risks (if publishers lose revenue) to the service that publishers provide to authors, including peer review and accessibility of different routes to publication. Hence risks to standing of UK research base. Increased access to high-quality research reports offset to some extent by risks in mixing up content that has and has not been subject to peer review. | Access not necessarily to version of record. Risk (if publishers lose revenue) to discovery and navigation systems they currently sustain. Need for innovation in development of the discovery, navigation and preservation infrastructure for different kinds of content. |