While advocates have lauded Australian chief scientist Cathy Foley¡¯s proposal to make research literature freely available, it is opposed by the Australasian group that has led the charge on open access.

Dr Foley describes her ¡°public access¡± model as an embellishment of the ¡°read and publish¡± arrangements struck with scholarly publishing houses in recent years. In essence, these agreements renegotiate universities¡¯ subscription deals to remove Australian research from publishers¡¯ paywalls.

Under Dr Foley¡¯s concept, the agreements ¨C which would be negotiated by Canberra, rather than universities or university consortia ¨C would also provide the Australian public with free access to the 96 per cent of new research produced elsewhere.

This could generate an A$2.3 billion (?1.2 billion) economic windfall and hundreds of new jobs through productivity and policy improvements, according to Dr Foley¡¯s?.

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She likens the approach to Australia¡¯s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the government¡¯s vehicle for negotiating national access to crucial medication. And she says that at worst, her model would cost about one-quarter more than Australian institutions¡¯ current annual spending on subscriptions and open access publishing charges, which she estimates at A$362 million.

It could even produce a net saving by ¡°leveraging commonwealth bargaining power¡± and reducing the need for repositories to house publicly available research, her report says.

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UNSW Sydney research administrator Nick Fisk said the ¡°internationally significant¡± proposal could produce ¡°huge payoffs¡± beyond academia. He said many people in community organisations, small and medium-sized businesses and even government agencies could not afford journal subscriptions.

¡°In the health sector, unless you¡¯re a member of a university, getting access to the literature can be really tricky. So, it really would be a terrific thing.¡±

Professor Fisk said the biggest risk with Dr Foley¡¯s proposal was that the government ¡°would effectively be the gatekeeper¡± of open access, leaving the scheme potentially vulnerable to budget cuts. There would also be ¡°challenges¡± in defining the ¡°Australian-led¡± research to be made open access, and identifying the Australian citizens exempted from journal paywalls.

He said these issues were not insurmountable and the model could be an ¡°amazing swansong¡± for Dr Foley, whose term ends in December.

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But the Council of Australian University Librarians (Caul), which has negotiated 25 read and publish agreements for Australian and New Zealand universities, stands opposed. Executive director Jane Angel??Dr Foley¡¯s model was not genuine open access because it did not allow research to be shared.

¡°While Australians would have access through the national subscription, the rest of the world would not,¡± Ms Angel said. ¡°This is at odds with the principles of open access.¡±

She said the approach would ¡°entrench¡± publishing business practices ¡°which see enormous profit margins derived from free academic labour¡±. And she insisted that the costs must not be offset by cutting spending on repositories, which were ¡°essential infrastructure¡±.

¡°Read and publish agreements are not the end goal,¡± Ms Angel said. ¡°They were always intended to be an interim measure to drive the transformation of publishing models.¡±

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Professor Fisk said Caul had led the ¡°fraught but worthy crusade¡± for open access, but it was making ¡°the perfect the enemy of the good¡± in opposing Dr Foley¡¯s model.

A spokesman for industry minister Ed Husic said the government was consulting the science sector over Dr Foley¡¯s proposal. He could not say when a decision would be reached.

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com