*Based on input from national research funders in the European Research Area, this article provides insights into the reality of policymaking for open access books. All interviews have been anonymised, but the identities of the interviewees are known to the authors.
During the summer of 2024, we asked research funders from around Europe a series of questions based on the open access books policy life cycle. The six questions refer to the six stages of the life cycle put forward by the PALOMERA project and provide insights into the reality of policymaking from our respondents.
We received 10 responses (83% response rate), which have been grouped together in an anonymised form for this article. We are very grateful to all of the funders who responded to the questionnaire.
Research in support of a new open access books policy
We asked research funders to tell us about any research that was performed to inform the policy formulation. Unsurprisingly, many funders started with desktop research of existing studies and research and by looking for existing recommendations elsewhere, such as the cOAlition S Statement on open access books (cOAlition S, 2021) and other funder policies already in existence (see PALOMERA Project Knowledge Base). This included surveying what other funders were doing in order to benchmark. A number of funders already had existing open access and/or open science policies, so part of the research was to revisit these policies and update them where necessary. For example, some funders had not previously included open access books as part of the policy. The European Commission policy was also consulted by one of the funders. Another part of the research process was to consult with national experts on open science as well as consult/survey publishers, authors, research performing organisations, librarians and other key national entities and experts. New reports have also been commissioned such as the OAPEN-CH study (Swiss National Science Foundation, 2018), which has since been used by many funders as part of their desktop research. Finally, research funders also referenced existing legal frameworks.
Policy formulation
This stage of the life cycle describes the initial formulation of the open access books policy after initial research and contextualisation have been conducted. As can be seen from the answers to the previous question, research funders consult and survey a wide number of stakeholders at the initial research phase or as part of the policy formation as the two stages may be iterative. However, there is no one size fits all approach to the policy formulation process as this is influenced by national practice as well as research. For example, some funders will use existing internal groups to form policy, while others will create multidisciplinary groups at management level as part of a collaborative effort. For many research funders there is an existing approval procedure hierarchy in place, involving steering groups, assistance from legal representation, the open science policy officer and ultimately consultation with the relevant government ministry.
Public consultation of the draft policy
Research funders were asked whether a public consultation took place and to reflect on how this process went. Firstly, it is important to note that three research funders held no public consultation about the policy. Of those that did, a number of funders thought that the consultation with stakeholders had worked well and was worth doing as it provided many insights from different stakeholders, but that it was also very time-consuming and resource intensive. Some funders chose to have a public consultation via the funder’s website where comments could be made on all points of the policy. Stakeholders could then see where changes to the initial policy had been made as a result of the feedback. In one case, the stakeholders were made aware of upcoming changes. In another case, the process was highly transparent with the opportunity to give feedback on comments received. In these cases not all comments were adopted and the decisions behind this were not made public. One funder reported that it had also run an email campaign to solicit feedback and also held workshops with key stakeholder groups in addition to an open consultation.
Implementation
The funders that had reached the implementation stage of their open access books policy were asked to reflect on how this process was undertaken. In one case, the policy had not yet been implemented, but a roadmap had been produced and implemented in the interim. Other funders had published the policy on their website with an accompanying news piece or high-level announcement ahead of the launch. Implementation of the new policy was also accompanied by a funding policy for books in a number of cases. One funder continued to engage with stakeholders by holding a series of workshops and training events and commissioning further consultation work as part of the implementation period. This led to the development of further resources to support stakeholders once the policy went live.
Monitoring and impact
There are two important areas that should be distinguished for this stage of the life cycle and respondents were asked to describe existing workflows and tools they had in place for them.
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Monitoring of compliance against the policy. Research funders monitored compliance using a variety of tools and methods. Some were only used for books directly funded by book processing charges, while others had not implemented a compliance check at all. A variety of methods are in use. Some funders are developing their own tools (Mendes Moreira et al., 2022), while others use CRIS systems to monitor compliance. Others outsource this function to third party providers, while some funders only have manual checks in place to monitor compliance.
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Monitoring of impact such as usage statistics. The majority of research funders in our sample did not monitor impact in this way. However, two funders reported that they used OAPEN (n.d.) to serve this purpose.
Evaluation and review
Asked whether they had performed a review of their policy, research funders responded that they had not got to this stage of the research policy life cycle yet and that their open access books policies were not expected to be reviewed in the near future. However, it is worth noting that from the responses to the first question, funders with more mature policies had clearly performed a light touch review as part of the research process for new policies, although there was no formal procedure.
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