Open Access has been one of the most significant developments in scholarly publishing over the past two decades. It has changed how research is funded, published and accessed, while influencing the policies of governments, funding bodies, universities and publishers around the world.
For many researchers, Open Access is now simply part of the publishing landscape. Funding applications routinely include publication costs, universities encourage or mandate Open Access, and publishers offer an ever-growing range of Open Access journals and publishing options.
The movement has undoubtedly transformed scholarly publishing. Millions more research articles are now freely available than at any point in history. However, I wonder whether we have reached the point where we should ask a different question.
Not whether Open Access is a good idea. Not whether more research should be openly accessible. But something more fundamental.
What does success actually look like?
Why Was Open Access Created?
Before considering the future, it is worth reminding ourselves why the Open Access movement emerged in the first place.
Although different organisations and stakeholders have emphasised different priorities, the underlying objectives have remained remarkably consistent.
Open Access seeks to remove barriers that prevent research from being read and used. If knowledge can be accessed more widely, scientific progress can accelerate. Researchers in institutions with limited library budgets gain access to the same literature as those in wealthier universities. Clinicians, policymakers, industry and the general public can benefit from research that may have been supported by public funding.
For many, there is also a philosophical argument. If taxpayers have funded research, should the results be freely available to everyone?
These objectives remain compelling today. Few would argue against increasing access to knowledge or making publicly funded research more widely available. Yet most discussions about Open Access focus almost exclusively on research that is being published now.
Far less attention is given to everything that has already been published.
Perhaps because the movement has been focused on changing how research is published, relatively little attention has been given to the long-term shape of the scholarly record itself.
The Forgotten Part of the Scholarly Record
When we discuss Open Access, the conversation usually centres on new publications.
- Should authors choose Gold Open Access?
- Should institutions strengthen their Green Open Access policies?
- Should funders require immediate access?
- Should publishers increase the number of Open Access journals?
These are important questions, but they all concern future publications.
The scholarly record, however, stretches back hundreds of years.
Every year, millions of new articles are published, but they represent only a small addition to the enormous body of literature that already exists. Across almost every discipline, vast numbers of articles remain accessible only through institutional subscriptions or individual purchase.
If the long-term aspiration is that knowledge should be available to everyone, what is the plan for this historical archive?
Have We Defined the Destination?
Perhaps the most interesting question is not how Open Access should operate today, but where it is ultimately intended to lead. Is the vision that one day all scholarly literature will become openly accessible? Or is the expectation that subscription publishing and Open Access will coexist indefinitely?
These are both perfectly reasonable positions. The difficulty is that they lead to very different futures. If the objective is universal access, then eventually attention must turn to the existing scholarly record.
If permanent coexistence is considered acceptable, then perhaps the current balance between subscription and Open Access publishing is already close to the intended destination.
What strikes me is that I rarely see this question discussed. Instead, much of the conversation focuses on immediate policy decisions, funding models and publishing agreements. Those are important operational questions, but they do not tell us where the sector ultimately wants to end up.
Without an agreed destination, it becomes difficult to judge whether today’s policies represent progress or simply incremental change.
A Thought Experiment
Imagine that from tomorrow every newly published research article in the world became Gold Open Access. Many would regard that as a remarkable achievement. It would certainly represent a major milestone for the movement.
But what would the scholarly record look like in twenty years time? Although every new article would be openly accessible, millions of older papers would still remain behind paywalls. In fact, the majority of the scholarly record would probably still remain inaccessible to many readers.
Extend the timeline to fifty years and the picture changes surprisingly little. The proportion of Open Access literature would continue to grow, but an enormous archive of historically published work would still require subscriptions for access. Moreover, publishers would still have to maintain two publishing models and somehow charge for paywalled articles, whether that is by subscriptions or pay per download. I suspect that they would prefer not to maintain what would now be a legacy system.
Even if we completely solved the question of how future research should be published, we would still inherit a scholarly record containing decades, and in many disciplines centuries, of restricted access.
That raises a simple but important question.
Is that the future the scholarly community is working towards?
Possible Transition Models
If the answer to that question is “no”, then perhaps the next discussion should not simply be about whether Open Access is desirable, but how a transition towards a more open scholarly record might realistically be achieved.
There is no shortage of possible approaches.
Articles could become openly available after a defined embargo period, perhaps ten or twenty years after publication. Publishers could release a fixed percentage of their archive each year, allowing older material to become progressively more accessible. Subject collections or historical volumes might be opened in phases, beginning with the oldest content. Alternatively, publishers could decide that once the costs associated with publication have been recovered, articles should move into an Open Access archive.
There are undoubtedly many other possibilities.
The scholarly community might conclude that no transition is necessary. It may decide that subscription publishing and Open Access will continue to coexist indefinitely, with each serving different purposes and different markets.
My point is not to advocate one model over another.
Rather, it is to ask whether we have ever had this conversation in a meaningful way.
Understanding the Publishers’ Perspective
Any discussion about opening historical archives also needs to acknowledge the realities faced by publishers.
Academic publishing is often portrayed as though the costs end once an article has appeared online. In reality, publishers continue to maintain digital archives, preserve content, manage metadata, maintain persistent identifiers such as DOIs, support search and indexing services, provide customer support and invest in the technical infrastructure that keeps scholarly literature accessible over many decades.
Many journals also publish on behalf of learned societies, where publishing income supports conferences, scholarships, educational initiatives and the broader activities of the discipline.
Commercial publishers, meanwhile, have shareholders and investors who expect sustainable financial performance.
There is also the issue of history. Much of the existing scholarly literature was published under agreements established long before Open Access became a mainstream expectation. Retrospectively changing the accessibility of that content may involve legal, contractual and practical complexities that are not immediately obvious.
Recognising these challenges does not weaken the case for wider access. Instead, it encourages a more balanced discussion that considers both the aspirations of the Open Access movement and the practical realities of maintaining the world’s scholarly record.
Could Technology Change the Conversation?
It is also worth asking whether technological developments might alter what is currently considered feasible.
The costs of digital storage continue to fall. Artificial intelligence is beginning to reduce the effort required for metadata management, content discovery and archive administration. Cloud infrastructure has transformed the economics of maintaining large digital collections compared with twenty years ago.
None of this removes the commercial realities faced by publishers, but it does raise an interesting possibility. Solutions that seemed financially unrealistic when Open Access first emerged may become increasingly practical over the coming decades.
Perhaps the conversation about historical archives will look very different ten years from now than it does today.
Should There Be an Open Access Roadmap?
Most major strategic initiatives begin by defining the destination before deciding how to reach it.
Governments publish net-zero strategies. Universities develop long-term institutional plans. Businesses articulate visions of where they want to be in five or ten years before determining the operational steps needed to get there.
Perhaps Open Access has now reached the point where a similar discussion would be valuable. Not necessarily a single global roadmap (scholarly publishing is far too diverse for that), but perhaps a shared understanding of what success ultimately looks like.
If universal access remains the aspiration, what might a realistic transition look like?
If permanent coexistence is the intended destination, should we simply acknowledge that openly?
If different disciplines require different approaches, should those differences be recognised rather than assuming that one solution fits every field?
These questions may not have straightforward answers. That should not prevent us from asking them.
Looking Beyond the Next Paper
For much of the past two decades, the debate has focused on the next article. Should it be Open Access? Who should pay? What licence should be used?
Those questions remain important, but perhaps they are no longer sufficient. As Open Access matures, the discussion should include the accumulated scholarly record that already exists.
Tomorrow’s researchers will not distinguish between articles published in 2026 and those published in 1996. They will simply search the literature and expect to discover the best available evidence.
Whether that evidence happens to sit behind a paywall may become increasingly difficult to justify if the long-term aspiration is universal access to knowledge.
Concluding Thoughts
Open Access has undoubtedly transformed scholarly publishing.
It has expanded access to research, increased the visibility of scholarly work and challenged long-established assumptions about how academic knowledge should be disseminated. Few would argue that these have not been significant achievements.
Yet every successful movement eventually reaches a point where it needs to look beyond the next incremental improvement and ask a more strategic question.
Where are we trying to get to?
For me, that is the discussion that now feels missing. Not whether Open Access should continue. Not whether more journals should adopt it. Not even which funding model is best. Rather, what should the completed scholarly record look like in fifty or one hundred years’ time?
If we can answer that question, the decisions we make today become easier to evaluate.
If we cannot, then perhaps we risk making small policy changes without ever agreeing what success actually looks like.
Did you find this edition useful?
I publish two free weekly newsletters exploring different aspects of higher education, research and scholarly publishing. If you enjoyed this edition, you may also find value in the following.
Governance & Research in HE
A weekly brief for higher education leaders and researchers examining governance, leadership and research in practice.
Publishing with Integrity
Examining scholarly publishing through an ethical lens, challenging assumptions and supporting academic career development.
About the Author
Professor Graham Kendall is Vice-Chancellor of GlobalNxt University, Malaysia, and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham. Over the past 25 years, he has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and has served as Editor-in-Chief and Associate Editor of several international journals. Through Publishing with Integrity, he explores the ethical, governance and practical challenges facing scholarly publishing, encouraging greater transparency, integrity and informed debate across the global research community.