Alternative Publishing Models to Support Open Access
There are currently many types of alternative economic models that are capable of supporting open access to research content. SPARC actively supports investigating and experimenting with all of these methods, and to that end, provides planning resources, best practice guides, white papers, and financial and strategic planning consulting support for open-access initiatives.
These alternate models include:
- Collective funding model: Widely regarded as a logical and compelling approach to developing and sustaining open-access research venues and open-access infrastructure services. However, the design and implementation of such models pose practical challenges that require careful planning and coordination.
- Campus-based publishing: Provide open-access publishing channels to scholar-led, society, and student research publishing initiatives. Providing publishing services for journals, monographs, and new-form digital research publications, these programs contribute to an expanding network of alternative publishing outlets. They support both new and existing publications.
View our resources on campus-based publishing - Publishing cooperatives & collaborations: Multiple-stakeholder publishing cooperatives can bring societies, libraries, researchers, and funders together to provide scalable and cost-effective open-access publishing services.
View our discussion paper on publishing cooperatives for society publishers. - Innovation incubation: New open-access models evolve from both small- and large-scale publishing initiatives, ranging from individual journal and monograph start-ups to coordinated multiple-organization initiatives.
Additional SPARC Resources on Publishing Models:
Read SPARC’s white paper, “Income Models for Open Access: An Overview of Current Practice.”
