The document, based on Alan Leshner’s June 2013 presentation to the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR), offers a comprehensive overview of the evolving landscape of open access (OA) publishing from a publisher’s perspective. Leshner distinguishes between "gold" and "green" open access, noting variations in immediacy, content, and location of free availability, and emphasizes the diversity among publishers — both in business models (for-profit versus not-for-profit) and in OA policies. Using Science magazine as an example, he describes a hybrid approach: research articles become freely accessible after 12 months, with immediate access provided for urgent public health topics, genome papers, and through participation in initiatives targeting low-income countries and nonprofit access platforms. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post accepted versions of their articles in institutional repositories and to utilize referral links for immediate access, ensuring compliance with funder mandates.
The presentation acknowledges the ongoing tension between OA proponents, who argue that publicly funded research should be freely available, and publishers, who point to the added value and the necessity of cost recovery. Leshner traces the evolution of OA policies, including the rise of “author-pays” models, funder requirements such as those implemented by NIH and RCUK, and governmental mandates for OA dissemination with defined embargo periods. The document concludes with recognition of the global momentum toward open access, highlighting initiatives like CHORUS and international action plans, and suggests that some form of open access is inevitable, though the timing and final structure remain subjects of debate within the scholarly communication ecosystem.
