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Open Voices

We’re sharing true, personal stories from SN researchers about their experience of publishing open access

Open Access Week 2022: Open for Climate Justice

Tackling the climate crisis requires rapidly exchanging knowledge across geographic, economic, and disciplinary boundaries. That’s why the theme for Open Access Week 2022 is ‘Open for climate justice’. To mark this, we’re talking mostly to researchers who’ve published open access climate research under ¹ú²úÂÒÂ×’s Transformative Agreements to find out more about their work and why they feel open access is so vital for tackling climate change. 

Open access books: supporting the SDGs

Open access advances research on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Read interviews with OA book authors that illustrate how publishing their books OA has extended their impact and reach. 

It matters how we open knowledge: building structural equity

How open access is essential in building structural equity and how transformative agreements enable researchers to achieve more?

Watch our open access authors

Dr. Juha Uitto (Director, Independent Evaluation Office, Global Environment Facility) gives some advice to authors considering open access for their next book

Kai Tao shares the advantages open access has brought him as a young researcher.

Read Kai Tao's full blog .

Achieving impact around the world

From round tables, surveys and author interviews, to personal testimonials, we've been gathering evidence from our authors to better understand what publishing an open access book, chapter, article, or data set has meant for them. Click the drop-downs to learn more about how open access is helping researchers from around the world reach readers across the globe. 

Dr. Jennifer Wallis, UK

I've been told by colleagues at the university that they have used it in teaching and part of the ease with which it's been incorporated into teaching is because it's open access; it's free. They don't have to impose upon the library budget to buy another book.

Dr. Wallis is the author of .

Prof. B. S. Daya Sagar, India

I would say that the open access model provides huge benefits to the readership, in particular to the readership of Global South. The open access model certainly attracts larger citation and download counts than the traditional model.

Prof. B. S. Daya Sagar is co-editor of the 

Dr. Ezio Bartocci, Austria

Q: Why did you choose open access for your research?

A: In Austria we have a special agreement between Springer and our university, and I did not have to pay the [open access publishing] fee.

Dr. Bartocci is the co-author of 

John West, Australia

I had numerous requests to write blog articles and those requests were facilitated by open access.

Mr. West is the author of 

Dr. Andrés Sandoval-Hernández, UK

A wider public was reached. People love to hear that it’s free to read. It reached many more readers – you write something, you want people to read it! 

Dr. Andrés Sandoval-Hernández is co-editor of .

Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc, Sweden

Q: How has OA increased discovery of your research?

A: We noticed a considerable impact in the media. The team also received a number of requests for collaboration, especially from graduate students.

Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc is the co-author of 


Dr. Cyril Dominguez, UK

As a scientist mainly funded by public money, I strongly believe that my research outcomes must be accessible to everybody free of charge. Furthermore, publishing my research in an OA journal increases significantly its visibility and therefore impact. More funding will be needed to cover the costs of OA. RCUK-funded researchers have access to a special fund from UK universities but this fund is not available for research that is not RCUK-funded. I believe that all research publications should be made OA and that a national/international fund should cover the costs or that discussion between governments and publishers should reach an agreement on increasing OA publication. However, I think that things are going in the right direction and OA is becoming more and more accepted and standard.

Dr. Dominguez is the co-author of 

Prof. Guy Madison, Sweden

A greater spread, in particular to non-academics, is something which has been very useful for the part of our work that is of relevance for the general public.

Prof. Madison is the co-author of 

Prof. Paul Williams, UK

Q: What possibilities has OA opened up for your research?

A: My paper on how climate change is increasing atmospheric turbulence, causing bumpier flights, reached a much larger audience by being open access.

Prof. Williams is the author of 



How open access impact measures up

We've released reports and case studies that show the impact of open access publishing

The breadth and scale of our open access publishing enables us to look at impact using bibliometric data. Metrics can help to show the real tangible impact of choosing open access.

This includes downloads (article, chapter or book downloads), to show readership, citations, showing academic attention, and altmetric data, as a proxy for wider public attention. We have looked at these three measures for both open access books, and hybrid open access journals. In both cases we found an open access advantage with increased downloads, citations and online attention for OA compared to non-OA.