Our Managing Director of Academic publishing, Mandy Hill, outlined the opportunities and challenges of embracing open research in a recent piece for Research Information’s yearbook.

 

We would like to share the highlights.

 

Transforming research

 

Open research seeks to maximise the impact and benefits of research by prioritising barrier-free access to research findings, data and methodologies.

At Cambridge University Press our mission to unlock people’s potential with the best learning and research solutions is closely aligned with the values of open research. We have embarked on a number of initiatives which include:

 

• Expanding our Open Access book and journal programme.
• Providing our authors with an easy and accessible route to publish their research Open Access through new institutional Read and Publish agreements.
• Announcing our new early and open research platform, Cambridge Open Engage.
• Launching our new social sharing service, Cambridge Core Share.
• Working with the community to develop sustainable and transparent open policies.

 

In her article, Mandy said: “There is one thing we can feel confident about: there will be a lot more open publishing in the future… the conversation in the industry has noticeably moved from ‘whether’ to ‘how’.”

 

The Future of Open Research

 

Some aspects of open research are well established, such as Open Access, but as the agenda develops we appreciate that further innovation is still to come.

Mandy states: “New technologies have provided an opportunity to completely re-evaluate the whole publishing workflow, bringing opportunities for openness across the research lifecycle and spurring innovations around open peer review, community annotation and post-publication review, Open data and many other things… we are exploring it ourselves with Cambridge Open Engage.”

 

Sustainable Open Research

 

To make open research work for our community, sustainable models are required, models that support the ongoing involvement and effort of authors, societies and publishers. We see our work as part of a longer journey to increase the open research capabilities available to our community, and extend the accessibility and impact of research.

As Mandy says: “Little of this is simple. All of it is important. Ultimately, we must be able to sustainably support open access at scale, with the best possible experience for every stakeholder.”

 

Maintaining Openness

 

Greater openness across the research lifecycle will improve accessibility, collaboration and efficiency, but realising the full benefit of Open is dependent on ensuring that the academic community it seeks to support continues to thrive.

We recognise that current models for open may need to adapt as the open research agenda develops. For example, our read and publish agreements provide discounts and waivers for publishers and access to the Press’ journals, but this may not be the only model suitable to maintain openness.

As Mandy states there “is the need to avoid creating new barriers to authorship…we also need to think about other researchers who don’t have the funding to support open publishing”.

By embracing the open research agenda and its changes we are committed to a sustainable, more open future for academic publishing.

We hope you’ll join us.

 

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Visit our webpages for more information on open research and publishing Open Access or contact openresearch@cambridge.org.