“Open access must work for everyone”
Malavika Legge reflects on OASPA’s new ‘percentage to participation’ position paper
Last month OASPA – the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association – released a new position paper marking an expansion of focus: it not only matters that open access is the predominant output for scholarship, but also how and for whom open access works.
This shift in imperative — an outcome of work on delivering a global transition to 100% open access — is described alongside a distillation of the five biggest problems in open access, and an exploration of how three interlocking barriers limit participation.
The work reveals a scholarly publishing system “optimised for scale, efficiency and standardisation – rather than diversity, inclusion and contextual relevance.“. Systemic issues and sector-based challenges must be addressed, and the new position paper proposes what OASPA’s own role could be.
Why we are taking an expanded view on open access
There is an overall slowdown with open access (OA). In 2024, we reported that fully OA journal outputs declined for the first time since 2000. Considering the ongoing transition from subscription (paywalled) to open models, the share of OA journal articles also decreased for the first time since 2015, with latest evidence of OA content plateauing.
Conversations with OASPA members and others in our network indicate that it is getting more challenging and complex for publishers to deliver open access. At the same time, it is becoming more difficult for libraries to afford open access across a growing number of models — alongside continuing subscriptions to closed content and simultaneously carving out funds to develop or support fee-free open publishing (aka diamond).
There are also geopolitical uncertainties and declining trust (from society at large) in academia. Meanwhile, within the sector, we see signs of diminished trust between libraries/funders and publishers. As far back as 2023, OASPA distilled trust signals we suggested could support funding for inclusive open-publishing models. By late 2024 we clearly saw the need for a different conversation – one focused on the paradigm shift that libraries, consortia, funders, and publishing organisations can enable together.
All of these factors prompted OASPA to examine how to deliver 100% open access in today’s context, and to ensure we are asking the right questions to complete the transition to open access. So, during 2025, we have brought diverse stakeholders together (publishers, libraries and research funders) to exchange ideas.
Our November 2025 position paper is a result of this work, and builds on efforts we began in 2021 when OASPA first identified a lack of diversity and raised concerns about the health of the ‘open access market’.
The opening paragraph in our latest position paper states: “When a community that has spent years building consensus suddenly lacks clear answers about next steps, it’s a sign the questions have changed.”
One question that has not changed, however, is why open access remains vital. We will discuss this in 2026, starting with a webinar that includes views from outside academia to explore why opening up and sharing scholarship widely is essential.
Prioritising stakeholder-level responsibility for wider change
Our paper distinguishes between broad structural challenges affecting the entire scholarly ecosystem, and sector-specific issues facing publishing organisations. Both require coordinated, collective action. We want to catalyse meaningful change, and in choosing our strategic priorities, we are opting to start pragmatically where we feel OASPA can add value.
An example: CoARA and DORA already exist. We don’t believe we would gain much traction if we were to create a new and separate undertaking around research assessment reform and we don’t want to duplicate effort. What we can do is encourage the open access network to support quality of outputs over quantity, and take other supportive measures. For example, one of the options in an ‘OASPA poll’ at our 2025 conference was for publishing organisations to drop the use of journal impact factors by opting out, which almost half of respondents were in favour of.
What we aim to say with our paper is that each stakeholder can impact positively on wider, systemic change. We propose to take next steps where momentum is built and we believe OASPA can achieve tangible results.
Valuing participation across an entire, diverse industry
From Subscribe to Open (that has opened over 375 journals without author-facing fees since 2020) to collective action opening books (across small presses and large publishers); from geographical-pricing and regional pricing pilots for fully OA journals charging fees to inclusive images in scholarly publishing; and from OA powered by scholars, societies, institutions and communities across regions to multilingual OA platforms spanning continents — organisations of all types are part of the ecosystem that is evolving to broaden participation in OA publishing.
At OASPA we often see polarisation around the concept of profit. For-profit publishing does not in itself denote harm, and non-profit publishing does not in itself denote ‘goodness’. Our position paper therefore concludes with the importance of open practices reflecting the values of participation – across diverse publishing (and other) stakeholders.
There is much to gain from taking the best across all approaches that exist, while being honest about challenges, and relinquishing or changing what does not work well. So, we need to ask questions that identify practices and pathways for positive change. OASPA took its first steps with such questions as we heard from publishers and others in our network that they would benefit from practical support and examples. This led to us releasing OASPA’s recommended practices to address inequity in open access a year ago. Our latest position paper now suggests a focus on values and approaches (across all types of organisations) that will create the pathways to sector- and system-wide transformations for the better.
And in considering what “better” means: we are not fully aware of all the needs and contexts of communities around the globe that remain marginalised and excluded by the scholarly system today. This is why our work urges for “honesty about what we don’t know rather than false confidence in prescriptive strategies“.
Finally, as much as innovation is essential, it is worth remembering that sometimes a traditional approach can be helpful (e.g. IOP publishing found that double-anonymous peer-review was effective at reducing bias in their titles with respect to gender, race, country of origin, affiliation).
A contextualised and careful approach to language
Just because translation technology exists does not mean solutions are easy. Long-form work, particularly in the arts and humanities is inherently reliant on language. Policy or technology around language, for instance assigning lower priority to expression and phrasing for data-driven STEM, cannot automatically be forced onto long form or more artistic formats in other subjects.
We need contextualised and careful approaches – that are not just appropriate to the culture and needs of each discipline, but can enhance, enrich and fortify them. The humanities should not be an afterthought. The goal is to expand the horizons of what is possible in a truly helpful way, and driven by participation from within disciplinary communities.
Community inputs for the way forward
We have been focusing on equity in open access for a few years now; our ‘percentage to participation’ paper formalises OASPA’s change in position: to be concerned not just with the quantity of open access, but also other dimensions of openness. That, and the range of fresh inputs and community participation in 2025 that fed into this latest output are up to date.
With this updated position, we are now inviting the community to continue to engage with OASPA and share thoughts: not just on how best to widen participation in OA, but also how to make the shift from measuring OA solely by percentage, to measuring participation and evidencing transformation towards an equitable, open knowledge exchange.
This position paper will feed into OASPA’s 2026 strategic planning. We also hope this work will help us hear new things. We are soliciting and listening to feedback. We welcome your views via this quick form or you can email me directly – malavika.legge@oaspa.org.
Malavika Legge is Program Manager for OASPA