A few days a go I highlighted a blog from the UK's Center for Global Development
https://www.hifa.org/dgroups-rss/center-global-development-five-proposal...
and invited the authors to comment.
I wrote: "Among the other high-level proposals, it's interesting to see the specific proposal about publishing. In full, item 4 reads: 'The UK has a clear, comparative advantage to leverage science diplomacy for global development and should use it to reform research publishing systems. Global systems for research dissemination, dominated by a few major publishers, continue to restrict access to significant amounts of new research and many cannot afford to pay often high publishing charges. But in 2023, the research landscape is shifting. Emerging economies are producing ever more of the world’s research, and some are pioneering alternative models for research publishing. Without significant reform, research publishing—and wider research systems—risk fracturing into regional silos, thereby entrenching inequities and undermining our collective ability to tackle global challenges. The UK punches above its weight not only in research investment but in the prestige and perceived quality of its research institutions and their output. There is a clear opportunity for the UK to work with emerging economies and other leading research producers to reform the publishing sector and ensure we have global research systems that are fit for purpose and can support global health progress.'"
I contacted the authors and they responded: "You might be interested in our recent paper on reforming research publishing and the G20. https://www.cgdev.org/publication/research-publishing-under-recognised-g... "
I note there is some duplication. Here is the abstract of the paper: 'Global systems for research dissemination, dominated by a few major publishers, continue to restrict access to significant amounts of new research, and many cannot afford to pay often high publishing charges. Decades of initiatives to improve access to research have yielded only modest successes. In 2023, the research landscape is shifting. Emerging economies are producing ever more of the world’s research, and some are pioneering alternative models for research publishing. Without significant reform, research publishing — and wider research systems — risk fracturing into regional silos, thereby entrenching inequities and undermining our collective ability to face global challenges. Ahead of the 2023 G20 Summit in India, this paper argues that the G20 is well placed to provide the leadership needed to ensure that research is a global public good by elevating the discourse on research publishing reform and acknowledging that this is not merely a niche concern for researchers but an important global challenge that underpins human progress. It also argues that by advocating for effective policy change vehicles, championing equitable funding mechanisms, and driving policy harmonisation, the G20 can help to dismantle the barriers to research access created by the current publishing system.'
There seem to be a number of questions that need to be explored more fully.
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
