Academies argue ‘gold’ open access causes inequalities

Federation of European academies highlights barriers to global south and researchers outside institutions

An increasingly common model of academic publishing—‘gold’ open-access—is furthering inequalities in academia and empowering large commercial publishers to the detriment of research, European academy leaders have warned.

Partly in response to requirements from funders, such as the Plan S initiative, many publishers are adopting gold models in which they publish papers with open access. The models often involve either institutional payments to replace subscription fees or authors themselves paying an article-processing charge (APC).