OSI Welcomes Publisher Participation in BOAI

April 12, 2002

The Open Society Institute (OSI) has a long history of collaboration with academic publishers and is looking for participation by publishers in its latest major initiative, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI). One of the two strategic paths identified in the BOAI provides an opportunity for publishers to set up new electronic journals knowing that the open access vision behind BOAI is shared by academic communities across the globe.

As a major part of the Initiative, OSI is working with publishers, business consultants, economists and librarians to develop model open access journal business plans. To support existing open access journals, OSI will provide funding for authors from over 65 developing countries to have their articles published in these journals; more details about the funding scheme will be announced soon.

There is a special opportunity in BOAI for learned society publishers. A transition to open access publishing may be very beneficial to smaller societies facing the struggle to maintain journals from which they make insufficient money to move to electronic access. For larger publishers also, the BOAI strategy offers a dramatic increase in exposure for their journals and an opportunity to move away from an economic model that relies upon library subscriptions. It is the considered opinion of many in the publishing and library communities that the current economic model is unsustainable. Academic organisations and publishers must work together to prepare alternative economic models if the scholarly publishing system is to emerge from the deepening "serials crisis".

Behind this thinking in BOAI there is a realisation that publishers contribute value to the access to research information. The academic world would be far poorer without the contribution of publishers. OSI wishes to work with publishers to retain their added value in new economic models that are viable and allow open access.

For additional information on the BOAI, please contact Melissa Hagemann, mhagemann@sorosny.org.

Home | Read the initiative | Sign on to the initiative | View signatures
BOAI Forum | FAQ | Grants | Resources | Other Initiatives
What you can do to help | OSI support for BOAI | Contact

 E-mail: openaccess@soros.org.