Realising the full potential of Open Access: How I learnt to stop worrying and love the RCUK policy

Cameron Neylon gave this presentation as part of the University of Exeter's Open Access Week events in October 2012.The web changes everything, and yet it has changed our central means of scholarly communication, the peer reviewed journal article, only slightly. At the same time we have a growing number of examples showing the potential for research to be transformed when the web is fully exploited to both carry out and communicate research. This transformation will both radically enhance our research capacity while simultaneously drive down the costs and increase the efficiency of research communication. There will be t...ransitional costs and a period of instability but for those institutions taking a leadership position there is a significant potential to both unlock the potential savings early and reap the strategic benefits of being ahead of the pack. While by no means perfect, the RCUK policy on open access represents a bold step in positioning UK research at the leading edge of the change that is coming. UK institutions have a historic opportunity to take a global leadership position on next generation scholarly communication if they are able to engage productively with the policy and work in concert to manage the transitional costs