Open Access: 
Is a National Licence the answer?
David Price & Sarah Chaytor
Occasional Paper 10
About the authors
Professor David Price is Vice-Provost (Research) at UCL. He is
responsible for leading the development and implementation
of the UCL Research Strategy and of UCL Grand Challenges,
including their implications for impact and public policy. He
chairs UCL’s Publications Committee and oversaw the launch
of UCL Discovery, an online repository providing details of
more than 270,000 UCL research outputs, with open access
to more than 27,000 full-text items. He is Professor of Mineral
Physics and helped establish the now major field of compu-
tational mineral physics. He is Chair of Governors for the UCL
Academy School, Camden, a Non-Executive Director of the
North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, and a Member
of the Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Sarah Chaytor is Head of Public Policy in the Office of the Vice-
Provost (Research) at UCL. She leads UCL’s programme of
public policy engagement, translating research for the policy
sphere and working on research funding and policy. She has
previously worked as a policy adviser at the Russell Group, the
Wellcome Trust and Universities UK, and prior to that was a
parliamentary researcher for a number of MPs.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to Dr Paul Ayris for his
invaluable comments on drafts of this paper, and to Richard
Mollet for doing much of the early development.
www.hepi.ac.uk 1
Foreword
Nick Hillman, HEPI Director
The UK is a world leader in academic research and a world
leader in publishing the fruits of academic research.
In the past, the publication process assumed universities
provided the main readership of peer-reviewed work. But
today, there is increasing demand for much wider access –
from businesses, public sector workers and independent
researchers. We should not pretend that past models of
academic publishing are suitable for the future, but nor
should we kill the golden goose. A free-for-all that does not
recognise the work of authors and publishers would
ultimately leave us all worse off.
On the back of a review by Dame Janet Finch, the Coalition
Government supported gold open access in which upfront
Article Processing Charges cover the publishing costs. The
Research Councils and HEFCE swiftly explained how they
would encourage open access. Such clarity is welcome, as was
the clear leadership provided by Ron Egginton, the leading
civil servant on open access in the Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills. He was a true public servant and has
been sorely missed since his early death last year.
Challenges remain. The gold open access model is working
and the UK is ahead of the pack, but it is not working for all in
all circumstances. In particular, it gives people abroad better
access to UK research while doing little to improve the access
of those within the UK to research produced elsewhere. That
is not in the national interest.
This paper is designed to contribute to the next stage in the
debate by seeking to provide answers to the remaining
questions. In particular, it proposes a new national licence
scheme as a way of promoting greater access while serving
the UK national interest.
The outstanding issues are too important to lose amidst the
political noise of the 2015 general election and subsequent
spending review. We encourage policymakers to evaluate the
costs and benefits of a national licence. If they do not agree
with the model proposed here, we urge them to propose
other ways to ensure the UK continues to punch above its
weight in both academic research and academic publishing.
2 Open Access
Open Access: 
Is a National Licence the answer?
David Price & Sarah Chaytor
Introduction
1. The United Kingdom is a global leader in academic
research. The science and research sector that underpins the
academy is a major contributor to the strength of the British
economy and a source of global competitive advantage. If we
are to sustain this pre-eminence, we must find ways to
improve access to published research, widen the potential
readership of research and reduce costs and inefficiencies. The
impressive productivity of the UK’s research base should be
matched by greater efficiency in access to research outputs.
2. The Finch Report of June 2012 established a clear
framework for the development of open access to scholarly
publications within the UK that ensures sustainability and
excellence.1 Subsequently, open access policies have been
introduced by RCUK and HEFCE. However, the benefits are
largely confined to academia, where access was already
excellent. Compliance with open access policies is a
significant cost for universities. We remain some way from
achieving the ideal desired outcome, as defined in Finch and
endorsed by the Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills (BIS), of universal gold open access – where every
taxpayer-funded published research paper is publicly
www.hepi.ac.uk 3
available free at the point of use. Moreover, there is an
unresolved conundrum: the UK is offering global access to its
own research via the gold route with no reciprocal offering
from most other countries, including key competitors.
3. A mechanism needs to be found that could run alongside
the outcome of the Finch review and which fits in line with its
recommendation to explore other licensing models. The goals
should be:
• to extend access to the wider economy and society;
• to reduce some of the challenges, particularly the cost impli-
cations for universities; and
• to assist with the transition towards global gold open
access.
4. This paper suggests that a national licence for access would
achieve these aims and offer a number of additional benefits
to the UK, including:
• supporting economic growth;
• making it easier for researchers to conduct their work; and
Green versus Gold
Under gold open access, publishers are paid by researchers (or researchers’ institutions or funders)
and papers are made globally and freely available online.
Under green open access, the manuscript, not usually the final published article, is placed in a
repository and can be accessed by all following an embargo period. Green open access is common
where there are no funds to pay the Article Processing Charge (APC) or where gold open access is
not offered by the publisher.
4 Open Access
• providing broad public benefits, such as improved access to
research among National Health Service (NHS) workers,
small and medium-sized business (SMEs), teachers and
policy officials.2
5. Importantly, a national licence could boost the transition
towards gold open access while avoiding some of the disad-
vantages in the current position and, in particular, the
potential damage to the UK’s national interest. 
Part 1: Open Access and a national licence
Access to published research 
6. Research is a long-term growth sector. Global spending on
all research and development (R&D) was $1.2 trillion in 2010
and spending typically increases by 4 per cent a year. This is
driven by two primary factors: economic growth leading to
more commercial R&D activity; and an increase in the number
of researchers in academic institutions around the world. As
the global economy becomes more orientated towards
technology and an emphasis on knowledge, these factors will
remain prominent drivers.
7. Science publishing is the next link in the research value chain.
A nation’s R&D spending is strongly correlated with the volume
of its published articles.3 There is a virtuous circle: access to
published outputs drives research productivity. Researchers say
that journal articles are the single most important type of
www.hepi.ac.uk 5
6 Open Access
information influencing their productivity.4 Access to and high
usage of e-journals drives researcher productivity in terms of
articles published, doctorates awarded and grants won.
8. The UK’s high level of access is one of the reasons that it
performs so well in terms of generating papers and citations
relative to its R&D spend and researcher base: 16 per cent of
the most cited papers in the world are generated by the UK,
which has just 4 per cent of the world’s researchers and 3 per
cent of the world’s R&D spend.5 Favourable economics sit
behind the high levels of access: British universities access 32
per cent more journals than in 2004 and pay 11 per cent less
per journal accessed.6 The price paid by UK universities per
article download dropped on average by 12 per cent a year
from 2004 to 2008 to 70p.7
9. At the same time as looking for ways to increase article
access, we should be looking for ways to reduce friction in the
system. Despite the unit price reduction, many UK higher
education institutions report they are struggling to pay for
access to the expanding number of published articles. The
gap between the growth in library funding and the growth in
publications causes problems. This is one cause of the
protracted negotiations that take place between individual
higher education institutions and publishers. Although Jisc
Collections undertakes such negotiations on behalf of the UK
higher education and further education sectors, this does not
affect the time-consuming negotiations with publishers that
do not participate in Jisc negotiations.
10. More could be done to raise levels of access in the UK and
increase efficiency, in order to help promote further success
in the UK’s research, training and service areas. In particular,
this paper considers what more might be done to raise access
levels among SMEs, medical institutions, teachers and
trainers, independent researchers outside higher education
institutions, policy makers and interested members of the
public. It also addresses the competitive threat from countries
such as China, South Korea and Brazil.
www.hepi.ac.uk 7
National Health Service pilot
A shift away from higher education institutions as the main places where research can be accessed
is underway in the NHS. From April 2014, a pilot scheme has given eligible staff working across
the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland access to journal content licensed by
Jisc Collections for the academic research community.  This builds on an earlier pilot from 2012
involving Academic Health Science Centres in England.
The pilot builds on the Finch Report recommendation that, during the period of transition to open
access publishing worldwide, funds should be found to extend and rationalise current licences to
cover all the institutions in the higher education and health sectors.
The pilot has received funding for the administrative support required to enable and maintain
OpenAthens and IP address authentication for NHS users and to provide usage data at agreed
points. No funding has been made available to purchase access rights to the journal content for
NHS users during the pilot period. A Steering Group comprising representatives from the UK
academic sector, the NHS in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, NICE and Jisc
Collections has lead the NHS Pilot from its inception. The pilot period ends in March 2015 and a
final report will be issued in the summer.
The results will inform Jisc, publishers and the NHS about relevant business models for NHS users.
It could also provide evidence that there is scope for multi-stakeholder, medium-term licensing
arrangements and offer useful lessons for the transition to a national licence.
8 Open Access
Developments since the Finch report
11. The drive towards greater access to research is an
established fact for academic publishing in the UK and open
access publishing has been recognised in higher education
policies. A model of open access that is sustainable for
producers, distributors and consumers of knowledge is the
right objective. The benefits include: increased research
productivity; access to new research for business, with the
potential of stimulating innovation; and improved NHS
outcomes by facilitating the translation of research findings
into clinical practice. By virtue of its strong research base and
its strong publishing industry, the UK is well placed to
demonstrate global leadership in the dissemination of
research and in championing a knowledge-led economy.
12. The Finch report defined the three most important
principles for access to academic research as accessibility,
research excellence and sustainability. The report recognised
the balance needed between providing access to publicly-
funded research and maintaining a viable commercial basis
for the publishing sector. The key recommendation was for
the UK to move to gold open access, with green as a fall-back
option when gold was not possible.
13. Following the publication of the Finch report, the Research
Councils (RCUK) mandated the publication of its funded
research as open access, with a preference for gold. This policy
has been in place since April 2013. The Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE) followed suit,
announcing that for articles to be considered for the Research
Excellence Framework in 2020, articles must be available on
an open access basis. Full compliance with the HEFCE policy
is likely to prove challenging for universities, as it requires
articles to be ‘deposited in an institutional or subject
repository on acceptance for publication’, which raises
questions about compliance, administration and cost.8
14. The UK is ahead of the international field in having such a
carefully crafted policy on open access. Outstanding issues are
subject to consideration by a stakeholder group under the
auspices of Universities UK, known as the UUK Open Access
Coordination Group. RCUK is also currently conducting the first
review of its policy.9  The EU is also showing leadership: it has
backed green open access in its current funding programmes
and launched a gold open access pilot. Policy developments
in individual EU nations, China and the United States suggest
this is a global phenomenon.10 The UK’s opportunity to
demonstrate further global leadership may be more
constrained than before.
The drawbacks of the UK’s open access policies
15. Open access in the UK can be seen as a developing, but
qualified, success. Yet however well it is progressing, it is
limited. The UK open access settlement is restricted to papers
published or disseminated in the UK, which make up only 6
per cent of the global total, or published elsewhere under the
www.hepi.ac.uk 9
10 Open Access
open access model. Non-open access content from elsewhere
in the world – around 90 per cent of the total11 – largely
continues to be available only upon subscription. This is due
to the commercial realities of the publishing market, which
require the costs of publishing to be met either through
Article Processing Charges or subscription payments. This
raises a big issue for the UK’s competitiveness. By implement-
ing gold open access, the UK is offering global access to its
own research with no reciprocal offering from most other
countries, including those who rival or exceed our own
performance in research. This is having a negative impact on
British competitiveness.
16. Additionally, despite the growth in online publishing, the
principal beneficiaries remain researchers at academic insti-
tutions. The vast majority of the population and businesses
still find it hard to gain access. In an age when 78 per cent of
properties are able to receive superfast broadband and some
90 per cent of the population are online, such constraints
seem out of date.12
17. Moreover, the cost of implementing the RCUK and HEFCE
policies on open access are significant for universities. The
cost of the RCUK open access policy was at least £9.2 million
in 2013/14, rising to more than £20 million when expenditure
on Article Processing Charges is taken into account.13 The
provisional estimate of meeting the requirements of the next
Research Excellence Framework is £4-5 million a year, with
additional implementation costs expected to be at least equal
to those for the RCUK policy.14 The open access costs faced by
universities therefore look to be in the region of £34 million a
year, if not more. This is additional to the existing bill of
around £175 million for UK university libraries’ journal
subscriptions.15 For the future, in addition to rising journal
subscriptions, the levels of funding for the payment of Article
Processing Charges and the ability of institutions to support
green open access with sufficiently good repositories are key
concerns.
18. There is also evidence to suggest that gold open access
remains costly. Extensive economic modelling – in a report
funded by Jisc Collections and published by the Open Access
Implementation Group – suggests green, rather than gold,
open access is the cheapest option for universities. According
to this report, the best current way to move from a subscrip-
tion model to open access is via the green, not the gold,
route.16 The largest institutional repository in the UK, UCL
Discovery, has successfully implemented green open access,
with total lifetime downloads exceeding six million. One
recently-published report shows gold open access is more
than twice as time-consuming and costly for research organi-
sations as green – even before the costs of Article Processing
Charges are taken into account.17 There are particular concerns
for smaller institutions, which may lack the capacity to develop
and maintain institutional repositories: the additional cost of
implementing open access can outweigh both their spending
on articles and their RCUK block grant funding.18
www.hepi.ac.uk 11
12 Open Access
19. The ‘Total Cost of Ownership’, whereby universities are
required to pay both for journal subscriptions and Article
Processing Charges, is sometimes labelled ‘double-dipping’.
UK universities can effectively pay publishing costs twice: first
through journal subscriptions and, then again, through Article
Processing Charges for the publication of individual articles
in the same journals. This issue is being successfully addressed
by Jisc Collections through negotiations with publishers for
offsets. However, not all publishers have yet engaged with this
process. Moreover, the effects of the offsets still have to be felt
in actual payment reductions, so it is difficult to project what
their full impact will be.
20. The question we now face is how government, publishers
and authors can ensure the UK can achieve even better
access to published research, while still respecting the need
for sustainability and excellence as outlined by the Finch
Report. We propose that a national licence is a potential
answer.
A national licensing agreement
21. A national licence provides a centralised framework within
which publishers can collectively agree a contract with a
government-approved body that would make all or any of
their specified journals freely available to any person within
the UK. Academic researchers would benefit from improved
access to research outputs but, more importantly, vast new
audiences would open up: corporations; small businesses;
patient groups; teachers; A Level students; and even casual
web surfers.
22. The potential benefits include:
• Providing extended access to articles published anywhere
in the world, as opposed to just the 6 per cent of UK-
authored articles under current gold open access initiatives.
• Positioning the UK as a leader in expanding access, to the
benefit of UK researchers, who could read research from
across the world from the day of publication free at the
point of use.
• Reducing costs through better knowledge-sharing, joint
development of systems, automation and data-sharing,
improving the deposit process and greater clarity in
publishers’ policies.19
• Delivering broader public benefits through expanding
access to published research to key sectors, such as schools,
the NHS and medical institutions, businesses and citizens.
One study shows access to journal articles is the most
important or second most important factor for success
among SMEs, large businesses, hospitals and public health
workers and government and independent research insti-
tutions.20
• Increasing research productivity of the beneficiaries of
increased access, not only in terms of access to the peer-
reviewed and published content but also to the advanced
technologies and tools developed by publishers to help
improve access to that content.21
www.hepi.ac.uk 13
14 Open Access
• Eliminating inefficiencies and tensions inherent in the
current purchasing process.
• Supporting the provision of new institutional productivity tools.
23. We argue that a national licence offers the best option for
the UK to extend access and move towards the ultimate goal
of full open access, in a way that can address some of the
current difficulties. A national approach to licensing offers
cost savings to the public purse and greater efficiency in
negotiations with publishers, while also providing the
benefits of increased access to and dissemination of UK
research and enabling users to gain access to a wealth of
knowledge. 
Part 2: Getting from Here to There
24. The national licence would cover access by any Internet
Protocol address connected with a UK internet service
provider – so, by extension, any person online in the UK. The
key elements of the proposal are:
• The centralised framework: A national body, such as (for the
sake of illustration) Jisc Collections, representing the UK
government and other stakeholders, would be empowered to
create and negotiate medium to long-term contracts with
individual publishing companies. This national body would
represent UK higher education institutions, SMEs, UK medical
institutions and NHS staff, charitable funders of research, public
libraries and representatives of independent researchers.
• The contract: This would set out a formula for predicting
and determining the annual contract licence price. It would
scale with growth of units published but with a mechanism
for accounting increasing efficiencies of unit production and
delivery costs.
• The funding:This could come from a combination of existing
sources of central government higher education funding (via
Research Councils and the higher education Funding
Councils), some allocation of funds currently dedicated to
facilitate closer co-operation between industry and academia,
the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) or NHS
funding and contributions from business and Innovate UK.
25. Publishers would be compensated for the provision of
access to their journals at a level to be determined through
further individual negotiation. It is important that the national
licence provides a feasible and sustainable model, including for
publishers, but price negotiations should also take account of:
the greater efficiencies for publishers of having one
overarching framework; the greater stability offered by a long-
term contract; and current funding constraints and budgetary
pressures in universities and elsewhere.
26. The content covered by the contract would be determined
by universities, researchers and other stakeholders in discussion
with participating publishers. The overall value of the approach
and the specific financial value of the contract would be
enhanced as the number of journals included increased. This
would have to be fully declared at the beginning of the
www.hepi.ac.uk 15
16 Open Access
negotiation process. This proposal envisages that this would
cover content generated anywhere in the world.
Access to Research
The logic of the national licence concept can be seen at work in the Access to Research initiative,
which was launched in January 2014 and which permits patrons of public libraries in the UK to
read UK research articles on-site, for free. Access to Research is born out of the recommendation
of the Finch report that a proposal for walk-in access to the majority of journals to be provided in
public libraries across the UK should be pursued with vigour.
Over 10 million academic articles are available, free of charge, in participating public libraries
across the UK. Students, independent researchers, small businesses and members of the public
can now access many of the world’s best academic papers, covering a wide range of disciplines
(including health and biological sciences, technology, history, medicine and social sciences)
through their local libraries. In total, 23 publishers, including all the leading academic publishers
in the UK, are signed up to the two-year pilot.
So far, over 14,500 individual users have used the service and 163 (80 per cent) of UK local
authorities that operate public library services are signed up. More local authorities are expected
to join. Local authorities are now taking the lead in promoting the service via their libraries, so
usage is expected to increase during the pilot. The implementation group, led by the Publishers
Licensing Society, is gathering quantitative and qualitative data which will be used to assess the
effectiveness of the service and to inform future delivery.
Access to Research has been able to provide expanded access to content outside academic insti-
tutions in a relatively short space of time because of three key factors:
(i) the close relationships between publishers and libraries and the recognition of trust in the
security systems;
(ii) the relatively closed environment of the library network and – given the stipulation of licensed
material being read only on dedicated terminals – a limited marketplace; and
(iii) the desire on all sides to develop the technology behind the system, to ascertain the level of
demand and to identify any delivery problems.
www.hepi.ac.uk 17
Further reflections
A multiple pricing approach
27. The most feasible way for a national licence contract to be
negotiated would be through a multiple pricing approach.
This would see a single body (such as Jisc Collections) repre-
senting all potential user groups negotiating a single licensing
framework within which different pricing points would be
available, giving rise to multiple contracts within the
agreement. These deals could have variable time limits,
according to the needs of different publishers and institutions.
28. One advantage of this approach is that it is more likely to
secure the support of publishers as well as other stakeholders:
publishers would be able to maintain the current levels of
commercial control and flexibility with no risk of competition law
concerns. This flexibility could be more suitable to institutions as
well, as they would be able to arrive at the negotiated price best
suited to their circumstances. This approach would also make it
easier for individual publishers or institutions to develop further
additional licensing terms or deals and could foster innovation.
29. One drawback to this approach is that it would sustain
current concerns over the pricing and cost models deployed by
different publishers. This multilateral approach has the further
potential complication of variations other than on price. The
framework licence could insist on a ceteris paribus condition for
everything except price, but that may not be sustainable.
Publishers might wish to introduce varying price points
18 Open Access
according to certain licence conditions. Institutions too could
wish to alter their costs according to certain usage levels. Such
complexity could undermine the logic of a single licence system,
with the weight of different approaches unravelling the unity.
A single pricing approach
30. Alternatively, not only the licence framework but the
licence price itself could be determined in one big negotiation.
Publishers and the representative body would negotiate a
price to be paid by all, with one single time-limited deal being
negotiated between all publishers and all institutions
represented in the framework body. However, there are serious
and probably insurmountable difficulties with this approach.
The price of simplification is rigidity. A negotiation to arrive at
a single price would in many cases mean a distortion of the
market-clearing licence price that could be achieved through
the usual negotiations. It is impossible to predict in whose
favour this would operate and, indeed, it is unlikely it would
all be on one side or the other. While in the aggregate (to a
watching economist) the efficiency gain might be satisfying,
to the involved firm or institution the forgone revenue or cost
would be less welcome. Furthermore, a single protracted
negotiation might be no less onerous than a high number of
bilateral discussions.
31. There could even be further legal costs incurred through
a single licence negotiation due to the extra scrutiny that
would have to be paid to the competition law considerations.
At all stages of the process to arrive at a single price, great care
would need to be taken to ensure that publishers were not
unfairly acting in concert and that, where a requirement for
publishers to act together existed, they were doing so in an
appropriate way, limited only to the terms required for the
negotiation. These considerations could make this particular
approach a non-starter for some stakeholders.
Potential challenges and how to deal with them
Cost to Government
32. The introduction of a national licence is likely to deliver
some efficiency and cost savings. We would not, however,
wish to pretend that a national licence offers a simple solution
to reduce the public funding commitment significantly from
current levels or that cost savings are the main reason to
consider its introduction. Ensuring the sustainability of the
publishing industry, as recognised by the Finch report, will
remain an important consideration, particularly in the context
of expanded access to global research outputs and the
consequent implications for publishers.
33. However, the potential benefits to the UK of supporting
greater access to knowledge are immense and include:
driving innovation and the knowledge economy; and
removing what is effectively a subsidy for other countries to
access UK research output.
www.hepi.ac.uk 19
20 Open Access
Modelling of costs
34. More work is needed. It is important to develop a robust
cost-benefit analysis that explores and models the expected
cost savings alongside the anticipated benefits. While this is
essential to underpin further discussions on a national licence,
it will be a complicated piece of work.
Funding model
35. One of the most tricky issues involved in introducing a
national licence is determining how much each partner (for
example, universities, businesses, the NHS and public
libraries) should pay. There are a number of questions: for
example, whether there should be an equal contribution from
all partners; whether contributions should be based on
current levels of payment for those organisations with
existing research journal subscriptions; or whether contribu-
tions should be made in accordance with anticipated levels
of use and/or available budget.
36. There are also issues to be resolved on the extent to which
funding will be provided from existing budgets versus an
additional (dedicated) government funding stream. These
questions are beyond the scope of this paper and will need
considerable stakeholder engagement.
www.hepi.ac.uk 21
Engaging stakeholders
37. While a national licensing agreement is likely to be of most
direct and immediate benefit to higher education institutions
and publishers, it is important that the preparatory work
recognises all potential beneficiaries are fully engaged and
that the proposal is seen as jointly owned. Furthermore, the
experience of implementing open access policies thus far
suggests that the costs and effort of advocacy will be consid-
erable, and need further thought. A truly national licence
needs the devolved areas of the UK to support the project,
which recent political developments may make more difficult.
Engaging publishers
38. Not all publishers may wish to engage in a national licence
and no one can force engagement on the reluctant. If a big
number of smaller players or a small number of bigger players
wants to continue with the current bilateral relationships, this
might prevent a national licence from getting off the ground.
Security
39. Without a guarantee that only UK Internet Protocol (IP)
addresses may be used, it would be very difficult to persuade
publishers to work towards the new system. Furthermore,
even with such an agreement in place, it would take only one
leak – either accidental or deliberate – for the system to be
22 Open Access
called into question. Achieving a foolproof, fail-safe security
protocol around the national licence requires a technical
method of ensuring the authenticity of every UK-based IP
address. Through work in tackling online copyright infringe-
ment, we know that such assurances can be difficult to come
by, especially with the use of proxy servers. But it is not
impossible. A key workstream in developing the national
licence concept will be around this question of security and
resilience.
Competition
40. From the outset, care would have to be taken on
competition law. Publishers need to be individually and collec-
tively certain that they are not standing in legal danger by
merely developing the concept, let alone delivering it.
Furthermore, the government and whoever else sits on the
other side of the negotiating table need absolute comfort that
they are taking part in a fair and transparent discussion. The
goal is to make the market work better rather than to stymie it.
Impact on the development of open access
41. The arrival at something close to a settled will on the
development of open access in the UK, following the Finch
Report, could be undermined by this proposed dramatic
change in licensing arrangements. Some people might ask
www.hepi.ac.uk 23
about the impact on the development of gold open access.
We suggest that a national licence, through extending access
to research outputs in the UK, is actually part of the transition
towards gold open access. Researchers can continue to
exercise choice in their journal of publication and Article
Processing Charges can be offset against the national licence
in the way they are now beginning to be offset against
subscriptions. The prices charged for subscription to non-gold
open access content would reflect the extent to which
journals contain gold open access articles. If anything, the
national licence takes forward the spirit of the Finch proposals
by emphasising the accessibility of research while
maintaining the bedrocks of sustainability and excellence.
Building a coalition
42. The biggest point of difference between current arrange-
ments and the national licence concept is that the latter
brings a number of new entities into the room for the nego-
tiations between publishers and institutions.
43. Establishing a national licence agreement will require the
support of:
• senior university leaders (particularly among research-
intensive universities);
• sector bodies and mission groups (such as Universities UK);
• representatives from the NHS and other UK medical institu-
tions;
• research funders (including RCUK, the Funding Councils and
charitable funders);
• Jisc Collections;
• university libraries;
• publishers;
• public libraries (perhaps through the British Library);
• independent researchers;
• business representatives;
• government departments and agencies; and
• interested citizens’ groups.
44. Whilst the initial challenges are considerable, a national
licence offers a chance for the UK to demonstrate interna-
tional leadership. Indeed, if successful, it could provide a
model for export to other countries, thereby recouping at
least some of the costs of establishing it. But finding a fruitful
way for publishers to interact with other stakeholders is vital.
Potential next steps
45. We have outlined here some initial thoughts as to how a
national licence might come about and a number of ways in
which it could operate. We propose the following next steps.
i. The UK Government should convene a high-level expert
working group with representatives of all the key stake-
holders to explore in further detail the merits, potential
costs and operation of a national licence, including a
detailed economic impact assessment.
24 Open Access
www.hepi.ac.uk 25
ii. Soundings should be taken from all the potential benefi-
ciaries. Discussions should also be extended to those from
outside these groups who may be able to provide
additional insight and assistance – most importantly, IT
security specialists and competition lawyers.
iii. Particular stakeholder groups should be encouraged to
convene in-depth discussions on the proposals – for
example, publishers may do this through bodies such as
the Publishers Association and the Association of Learned
and Professional Society Publishers. 
46. The expert working group would need to give explicit
consideration to how the barriers discussed above and others
may be resolved. For example, it could encourage:
• Jisc Collections to begin to explore the national licence and
the negotiating arrangements on behalf of the sector;
• publishers to engage with universities and Jisc Collections
to discuss putting a national licence into practice;
• higher education institutions to develop support and
consider funding options for a national licence;
• the Government to develop the open access policy agenda
and provide the necessary funding for a national licence as
a transitional route towards full open access;
• funders to amend their current policies and engage in the
debate; and
• libraries to take a leadership role in negotiations and
security considerations.
26 Open Access
Conclusion
47. This paper is intended to initiate a discussion on the desir-
ability and feasibility of a national licence in the UK. There will
be different views among stakeholders. A ‘coalition of the
willing’ may wish to take the idea further, with others either
waiting in the wings or deciding from the outset not to be
involved. On close reflection, some of the issues raised could
prove to be so complex that it is not seen as a proposal to take
forward. At this point, we should not see any outcome as
more desirable but we should be open to further exploration
and discussion, with the ultimate aim of strengthening the
UK’s research position and economic competitiveness in the
national interest. If the national licence scheme were, in time,
deemed to be unworkable, we would still need to ask the
question: where next for open access?
Notes and references
1 Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings, Accessibility, sustainability,
excellence: how to expand access to research publications, June 2012
2 Philip Nye, ‘Give teachers free access to academic research, says petition’, Academies Week, 2 January
2015
3 Evidence sourced from Elsevier and available on request.
4 See, for example, Publishing Research Consortium, Access to professional and academic information
in the UK: A survey of SMEs, large companies, universities & colleges, hospitals & medical schools,
governmental & research institutes (Companion report), Mark Ware Consulting, August 2009.
5 BIS, International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base 2013, Elsevier, December 2013
6 STM, Access to research outputs: a UK success story: How journal publishers and their investments have
delivered essential services for researchers that enhance their efficiency and bring significant gains in
productivity, May 2010
7 Research Libraries UK, RLUK Library Trends, CIBER, March 2011
8 See http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/rsrch/rinfrastruct/oa/policy/.
9 For further details, see http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/openaccess/2014-independent-review-
of-implementation/.
10 For the EU, see http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/open-access-scientific-information; for the
US, see Richard Van Noorden, ‘White House announces new US open-access policy’, Nature News
Blog, 22 February 2013 (http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/02/us-white-house-announces-
open-access-policy.html); for China, see Richard Van Noorden, ‘Chinese agencies announce
open-access policies: Researchers will now be required to make papers free to read within one year
of publication’, Nature, 19 May 2014; for an example of another EU state (the Netherlands), see
Sander Dekker, ‘Open Access to publications’, Parliamentary document, 21 January 2014.
11 Estimate quoted by a large publisher in the field.
12 Ofcom, Facts and Figures, June 2014 (http://media.ofcom.org.uk/facts/)
13 Research Consulting, Counting the Costs of Open Access: The estimated cost to UK research organisa-
tions of achieving compliance with open access mandates in 2013/14, November 2014
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 A. Swan and J. Houghton, Going for Gold?: The costs and benefits of Gold Open Access for UK research insti-
tutions: further economic modelling, Report to the UK Open Access Implementation Group, June 2012.
www.hepi.ac.uk 27
17 Research Consulting, Counting the Costs of Open Access: The estimated cost to UK research organisa-
tions of achieving compliance with open access mandates in 2013/14, November 2014 – the report
states gold open access takes two hours per article at a cost of £81, compared to green open access
which takes just over 45 minutes per article, at a cost of £33. 
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. Costs for gold open access are estimated on the basis of 38,853 papers at £1,727 each, totalling
£67 million, and the costs for national licensing are estimated at approximately £81 million, on
the basis of higher education contributing £6-12 million, the NHS contributing £1-2 million and
other parties contributing less. Estimate from a large publisher.
20 Publishing Research Consortium, Access to professional and academic information in the UK: A survey
of SMEs, large companies, universities & colleges, hospitals & medical schools, governmental & research
institutes (Companion report), Mark Ware Consulting, August 2009.
21 Publishing Research Consortium, Access by UK small and medium-sized enterprises to professional
and academic information, Mark Ware Consulting, August 2009; A. Swan, Study on the Availability
on UK Academic ‘Grey Literature’ to UK SMEs, Report to the JISC Scholarly Communications Group,
December 2008; British Library / JISC, Researchers of Tomorrow: the research behaviour of Generation
Y doctoral students, June 2012.
28 Open Access
Trustees
Professor Sir Ivor Crewe (Chair)
Dame Sandra Burslem
Professor Sir Peter Scott
Advisory Board
Professor Janet Beer
Professor Sir David Eastwood
Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow
Professor David Maguire
Dr Ruth Thompson
Professor Dame Helen Wallace
Partners
BPP University
Ellucian
Elsevier
HEFCE
Higher Education Academy
Jisc
Kaplan
Mills & Reeve LLP
Pearson
Times Higher Education
UPP Group Limited
Wiley
President
Bahram Bekhradnia
Academic research is, rightly, becoming easier to access. The
potential benefits from giving companies, NHS staff and
independent researchers access to the latest research are
enormous. But the change brings big challenges too,
especially for the UK’s world-leading publishing industry.
At the moment, the UK’s support for ‘gold open access’ 
risks giving the rest of the world our research without
matching reciprocal benefits. This paper argues for a
national licence scheme, which would provide online 
access to academic research from across the world free at
the point of use to everyone in the UK. That could be the
best way to deliver a sustainable approach to extending
access that is in the UK’s national interest.
HEPI was established in 2002 to influence the higher education debate with evidence. 
We are UK-wide, independent and non-partisan.
April 2015 • ISBN 978-1-905315-27-7
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