Corporate freeloading, UK House of Commons inquiry into science publishing

[Jan Velterop <velterop@biomedcentral.com>]

This morning I attended, in the public gallery, the fourth oral testimony
session of the inquiry into science publishing by the S&T Committee of the
UK House of Commons. Most interesting, as usual.

The concept of corporate 'freeloading' in an open access environment has
been discussed on this list, and interestingly, the witness who
represented both the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) as well as the
Office of Science and Technology (OST), was also asked about it. Sir Keith
O'Nions (he assured the Committee that there are no competing interests in
representing the DTI and OST at the same time), in his answer, dwelled
quite a bit on this problem of 'freeloading'. What seemed to escape his
attention or consideration, though (at least in his answer), is that there
is much of what could be called 'freeloading' going on in the traditional
publishing model by fully exploiting the complex monopolies that are part
of the system and that make science publishing so phenominally lucrative.
Monopolies not a problem for the DTI?

But there is more to be said about it. Of a Department of Trade and
Industry one could expect that they are concerned with all of industry,
but especially with the innovative industries that are likely to
contribute to and benefit the economic development of the country in the
long term. Companies that are intensive users of research information
(don't just think pharma giants, but also young start-up companies) are,
almost by definition, innovative. So are companies that are trying to
change the business models of science publishing into more effective, open
access ones.

Is 'freeloading' more of a 'problem' if it is done by innovative companies
contributing more than average to the economy -- though perhaps in the
future, in the case of innovative start-ups -- or if it is done by
traditional publishing companies exploiting monopolies and taking mostly
public money?

The fear of the academic community, specifically libraries, is that
corporate freeloading (by non-publishers) puts more of the burden on their
shoulders. That is understandable, but the problem should be put in the
right perspective. First, it is important to realise that the
'freeloading' problem only exists with repect to so-called 'primary
research articles' and not review literature, textbooks, databases and the
like. Only to the stuff of "Publish or Perish" if you wish. I stand by my
earlier estimate expressed on this list that for most publishers and most
journals the turnover realised from subscriptions to this primary research
material is less than 5%. This is based on decades of experience in the
conventional science publishing sector. Crispin Davis (Reed Elsevier CEO)
said in his testimony that it was 25%. It's up to him to prove this, or at
least make it plausible. Second, research-intensive companies are not just
consumers of research, they also produce and fund research, including
contract research carried out at universities. This should be factored
into the equation as well.

But the most important point is this: why would we jeopardise the
potentially huge benefits of open access for science and society, and give
up the potentially significant financial savings (yes, also for
research-intensive institutions, see the Wellcome report, which, IMHO,
even underestimates the savings, which it reports as in the order of 30%)
just because there may be some 'freeloading'? Isn't stimulating economic
activity on the basis of scientific findings one of the major purposes of
scientific discovery in the first place, at least for those who dish out
public funding for science?

Jan Velterop
BioMed Central
www.biomedcentral.com