Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he is taking steps to support (a) affordable and (b) open-access models in academic publishing.

The Government supports open science because it drives innovation and collaboration by enabling researchers, innovators and policymakers to access and use the latest science and evidence. UKRI Open Access policy ensures that findings from research funded by the public through UKRI can be freely accessed. The policy supports around 45,000 research articles a year, being made OA immediately. In 2022 over 85% of all articles arising from UKRI funded research were open access.

UKRI Open Access Awards support over 150 universities, research institutes and PSREs in meeting the requirements of the UKRI open access policy. These awards cover article publishing charges (APCs) under certain value for money terms and supports open publishing agreements where there is no article fee. The grants also support improvements to digital research infrastructures, repository management and guidance for researchers.