Critical Issues in Open Access and Scholarly Communications

Friday 24 May

Ian Gulland Lecture Theatre

Whitehead Building

Goldsmiths, University of London

The four UK funding bodies have signaled their intention to move towards an open access policy for long-form publications and to mandate open access book publishing for the Research Excellence Framework exercise due in 2027.

UKRI has signed up to Plan S, a Europe-wide coalition that aims to accelerate the transition to full and immediate open access.

This event aims to widen the dialogue on open access books, examining the implications of UK policy for research culture and values, the future of scholarly publishing and for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. It will reflect on the most recent findings from the Universities UK open access reports and provide a platform for gathering additional evidence and feedback from across the university sector.

Incorporating representatives from funding agencies, the UUK working group on open access monographs, REF panelists and PVCrs, publishers, learned societies, scholarly associations and researchers from a range of institutions – who will highlight both the challenges and opportunities of open access monograph publishing – the event will be structured around the following questions:

- What is the current UK policy on open access, and on open access monographs in particular?

- What is at stake for REF 2027, research culture and values, ECRs and diversity in scholarly publishing and practice?

- Who benefits from open access or from publishing as usual?

- What are the challenges of open access monograph publishing?

- What kind of experiments are made possible, what collaborations might emerge?

- Why publish, and where might online, open and platform-based publishing lead us next?

- What changes might be respectively desirable, equitable and feasible at national and global scale? Or result as consequences from open access developments?

Speakers include:

Chris Banks, Director of Library Services, Imperial College, London

David M. Berry, Professor of Digital Humanities, University of Sussex

Susan Bruce, Professor of English and Co-Chair, Arts & Humanities Alliance, Keele University

Anthony Cond, Managing Director, Liverpool University Press

Geoffrey Crossick, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, School of Advanced Study

Ronan Deazley, Professor, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast

Joe Deville, Lecturer in Sociology, Lancaster University

Gary Hall, Professor in Media and Performance, Coventry University

Steven Hill, Director of Research, Research England

Sarah Kember, Professor of New Technologies of Communication, Goldsmiths

Peter Mandler, Professor of Modern Cultural History, University of Cambridge

Sunil Manghani, Professor of Theory, Practice & Critique, Deputy Head of School, Director of Research and Enterprise, Winchester School of Art

Samuel Moore, Researcher and Consultant: critical information/publishing studies

John Scott, Honorary Visiting Professor, Universities of Exeter and Essex

Graham Stone, Senior Research Manager, Jisc

Simon Tanner, Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage and Pro Vice Dean Research, King’s College London

Sylvia Walby, Professor of Sociology, City, University of London

The event is organised by Goldsmiths College, with Jisc and Research England in attendance