As part of our Annual Forum this year, we’re taking the opportunity to hear directly from the organisations supporting the event and learn more about their perspectives on Open Science and open research. Through this interview series, we’ll explore what openness means to different stakeholders, the opportunities and challenges they see across the Arab region, how they are supporting researchers and authors, and what they hope to see develop across the research ecosystem.

We spoke with Ros Pyne, who is the Global Director, Open Access and Innovation at Bloomsbury, about the development of open access books, the challenges of making monographs openly available, and the funding models that can help make open access more sustainable. Ros also shares her perspective on the roles of publishers, funders, and libraries in advancing open research, as well as the importance of ensuring that authors from different backgrounds have opportunities to publish their work openly.

Emily Choynowski: Could you tell us a bit about Bloomsbury and your role within the company?

Ros Pyne: Sure. Bloomsbury’s academic division specialises in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. We publish books as well as digital resources. Interestingly, Bloomsbury was also an early adopter of open access. We’ve been offering open access books since 2008, making us one of the first publishers to do so. Over the year, we’ve experimented with different approaches to make open access available to as many authors as possible, with a particular focus on areas and authors that have sometimes been underserved by open access.

I’m the Director of Open Access and Innovation at Bloomsbury, overseeing our entire open access programme. This includes the models we offer, the policies we establish, and the workflows that enable us to publish books open access. I also work with funders and librarians to understand how open access is developing. The innovation side of my role focuses on AI and how our editorial teams are navigating developments in this area.

Emily: You mentioned that Bloomsbury was one of the early adopters of open access. Why does the company support open access, and is that commitment part of a broader engagement with open research?

Ros: That’s a really good question. Given our subject focus we would generally describe our focus as open research rather than open science, although I appreciate that there are some translation challenges around these terms. As academic publishers, our role is to help communicate new ideas and thinking to the world, and open access is a powerful way to do that. We know that open access can increase readership and citations, so the more authors we can offer it to, the better.

Our approach to the wider open research landscape is shaped by our focus on the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Questions around open data, for example, come up less frequently in these fields, and we don’t have open data policies in the same way some other disciplines might. We tend to focus on the core mechanics of open access because we believe this is where we can offer the most value to our authors. This also reflects the priorities of funders and institutions working in these areas.

That said, if an author approaches us with a specific request relating to another aspect of open research, we are open to discussing it. We don’t necessarily have formal policies covering every aspect of openness, but that doesn’t mean we’re unwilling to explore them. These requests are relatively uncommon, so it’s often easier to discuss an author’s particular needs on a case-by-case basis.

Emily: Given Bloomsbury’s focus on the arts, humanities, and social sciences, where do your authors primarily come from? Are they mostly based in the UK or other English-speaking countries? Do you also support bilingual publishing?

Ros: Our publishing is exclusively in English, although we do publish some works that were originally written in other languages and have been translated into English. Bloomsbury was originally headquartered in the UK but has since expanded internationally. We have a strong editorial presence in the US, as well as editorial offices in India and, more recently, Singapore. So, our author base is expanding. While it has traditionally been concentrated in Europe and the US, it is becoming more global each year.

Emily: Bloomsbury publishes open access and supports open research initiatives such as ours through sponsorship, which we’re very grateful for. Beyond sponsorship, are there other ways the company contributes to openness?

Ros: We’re members of OAPEN, which is one of the key organisations supporting open access books. Its work has been important in establishing standards and improving the discoverability of open access books. We’re also regular sponsors of the OASPA conference. Beyond financial support, we contribute our time and expertise to projects that benefit the wider open access book community. I’m on the OASPA board, for example, and we’ve also contributed to the OA Books Toolkit. These are ways of supporting the community that don’t necessarily involve direct financial contributions but allow our in-house team to help develop projects and resources that benefit others working in open access books.

Emily: Looking ahead, how do you see the roles of publishers, funders, librarians, and other stakeholders evolving as open research continues to develop? Given Bloomsbury’s focus on books and the arts and humanities, your perspective offers an interesting view of how the sector might evolve.

Ros: I think we’ll continue to see the important interaction between publishers, funders, librarians, and authors that has characterised the development of open access over the past two decades. Moving towards open access requires all these groups to coordinate their efforts and influence the system in different ways. Funders might introduce stronger requirements for research to be made open access, while institutions can play a central educational role. Publishers need to explore different approaches and ways of collaborating with institutions to support open access. Academics also need to understand its value and how it can benefit their work. This is how the sector has been working to expand open access for many years and I expect that collaboration to continue. There are also questions about how policy might evolve, but that’s a slightly different issue from the changing roles of these stakeholders.

Emily: You’re representing Bloomsbury, so feel free to answer from the company’s perspective or your own. What changes would you like to see in the ecosystem that supports open access monographs over the next five years?

Ros: I worry that we’ve seen some retrenchment in open access for books. Five years ago, there seemed to be considerable momentum. We had made substantial progress with journal articles, with open access approaching 50% of published articles, and the next step was to make similar progress with books. Recently, however, we’ve seen some setbacks. In the UK, for example, there had been plans for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) to introduce an open access requirement for books, which would effectively have created a UK-wide mandate. The timeline has been pushed back, and although the plans haven’t, to the best of my knowledge, been abandoned, there is still uncertainty about how they will be implemented.

We’ve also seen significant funding cuts in the Netherlands. Switzerland, which had funded open access book publishing for Swiss authors for a decade, has also narrowed its support to authors with grant funding. I worry that some of the moment has been lost, particularly the crucial role of funders in driving open access. If we want book to continue moving towards open access, we need another coordinated push from across the sector.

Emily: How much of this is specific to open access books, and people’s preference for print when reading longer publications, as opposed to shorter journal articles?

Ros: I think there are two separate questions here. The first is whether print is going away for books in the same way it has for journal articles. The answer is clearly no. People still value print books, particularly when they want to explore a subject in depth, read a work from cover to cover, or return to it over time. That said, I think we’re beginning to see a generational shift. It has taken longer than we expected, but reading habits are changing.

For libraries purchasing books for courses, there is an increasing preference for digital editions that all students can access simultaneously. This applies to monographs and research titles, as well as textbooks. We saw this shift during the pandemic, and it has largely continued since then. Digital editions also offer practical advantages, such as making it easier to search within a text.

Ideally, an open access book would be available in both print and digital formats, giving readers the benefits of each.

The second question is about whether scholars value open access books, given that they are by definition digital editions. The cost of academic books can be prohibitive for scholars in some parts of the world, as well as those who are unaffiliated with institutions. Download figures show that people want and use open access books, and that these books reach a much wider range of places than traditional publishing models might allow.

I don’t think we should prioritise providing print editions to a relatively small number of scholars at well-funded institutions over making digital editions available to readers worldwide.

Emily: Making books open access requires sustainable funding models, particularly if we want to ensure that authors are not excluded because they cannot afford publication fees. What approaches can help address this challenge, and how has Bloomsbury been working towards a solution?

Ros: One approach I’d highlight is Bloomsbury Open Collections, our collective action model. We recognised that making books open access can be expensive, and we didn’t want our programme to be limited to authors at wealthy institutions that could afford the fees. Bloomsbury Open Collections uses a collective purchasing model, sometimes described as “subscribe to open” or “purchase to open.” We invite libraries to purchase collections of new books covering subjects such as climate change and the environment, gender and sexuality, and African studies and international development. If enough libraries purchase the collections, we make the titles available open access. Participating libraries also receive access to related backlist titles, with around 150 titles included as an additional benefit.

We’re now in our fourth year of running the programme and have made more than 60 books open access at no cost to the authors. Participation has grown each year, with more libraries taking part and more books being made available.

We prioritise funding from this model for authors from low- and middle-income countries, unaffiliated authors, and early-career scholars. This means we’re not only focusing on subjects where there is a strong case for open access, but also directing support towards authors who might otherwise have fewer opportunities to publish their work openly.

There has been considerable discussion about whether these models are effective. I’m not sure this particular model could work across an entire publisher’s portfolio, but it has been very effective when applied in a targeted way.

Emily: Are there any recent milestones and achievements that you are particularly proud of?

Ros: Yes, I’d add that we published our 750th open access book this year. We publish open access books across our full range of subjects, from fashion and design to history, philosophy, politics and library studies, and much more. We’re also finding ways to make books in areas that can be more challenging for open access, such as the visual arts, available openly, despite the complexities around image rights. So, despite my somewhat gloomy comments earlier, we’re continuing to expand our open access publishing.

We’re continuing to find more ways to support open access across our publishing programme, and the programme continues to grow year on year. And I think this positive note might be a good place to finish!