Open access in the Business School David Wilson, Head of Research Support, Imperial College Business School

A bit of background I’m not a librarian or an academic Have been a research manager at Imperial since 2009 Involved in OA through College working groups etc. since 2011 Regularly field queries from academic colleagues on OA and what they have to do Try to think about what they want, their culture and incentives and how we can help Not talking for now about research into OA from a business perspective, interesting though that is Haven’t had time to do a proper survey – largely anecdotal from our BS, not aware of more rigorous research on BSs & OA. Compliance in BS & esp. Management among best at Imperial

Who are we talking about? Business Schools are not homogenous Different disciplines have very different attitudes to, e.g. sharing pre-prints via subject repositories Economists might not call what they do OA, but it can amount to the same thing… …But much less established and poorly understood in business and management So, OA can look like more of a cultural shift in some areas than in others

OA by any other name (since 1993)…

What do they think? Awareness of OA and supporting arguments are not always high, often seen as an admin burden Little academic outrage at publishers’ practices: RES or AoM aren’t Elsevier OA and wider personal and institutional incentives don’t align: Rankings culture prevails; Journals lists are an obsession (FT, CABS), but many “top” journals ignore OA completely; Many aren’t comfortable with OA (and DORA etc.) challenging this, even if they’re aware E.g. been told that OA considerations will never influence academics’ decisions on where to publish. Comments from CABS research conference on DORA?

What can we (all) do? Be clear and patient, don’t be afraid of repetition Understand academics’ constraints and incentives: for some, wider culture shift is a long, long way off Realise that different tacks on “compliance” will work with different people Be prepared with: Answers on policy, embargos, repositories etc. Stats (e.g. influence on citations); Examples where we know OA has had specific impact (e.g. dissemination to policy audiences)

OA and impact: one real-life example Imperial researchers (Haskel et al) found greater productivity benefits from publicly-funded research than previously thought Published (pre-print) as Imperial discussion paper early 2010 Referred to by ministers in spending review later that year, cited as evidence for protecting science budget Journal version not published until 2013 Acknowledge this is one specific kind of OA: not necessarily “green” since pre-reviewers’ comments, but indicates influence of openly-available research and similar examples could encourage others