The Europeans are taking on the for-profit journal establishment, (have a look at Plan S), here, however, not so much. But at least the recent House of Reps inquiry (CMM November 27) into research admin wants something done.

“While there are moves internationally and locally within Australia to shift to open scholarship, Australia lacks a national coordinated approach,” the committee reports. It endorses a proposal from the Australian Open Access Strategy Group for a five-year funded body to establish an open-access strategy.

The Council of Australian University Librarians and colleagues already have a F.A.I.R. ((Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) Policy Statement, which would make “an essential foundation for any open access policy statement.”

Good-o, but will it happen and would it work? Probably not, unless the government backs it as a matter of policy.

Funding agencies are already in favour of open access, but only up to a point. The NHMRC, “strongly encourages researchers to take reasonable steps to share research data and associated metadata arising from NHMRC supported research” (CMM January 30 2018). The ARC says research it funds must be open-access within 12 months, unless “legal or contractual obligations” prevent (CMM August 30 2017).

CAUL estimates that 60 per cent of research outputs held in university repositories  is open access. But CMM suspects the 40 per cent that isn’t includes much STEM and medical research in areas where the science moves fastest