I am an archaeologist specialized in India and Pakistan. I am a member of the Japan Archaeological Association (JAA) and currently serving on its board. Having heard the news that the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)’s grants-in-aid for scientific research (amongst all, those for publication of research results and scientific periodicals) would change drastically, I was curious about how they would change. So, I attended the Third SPARC Japan Seminar 2012, held under the theme of “Reform: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research in Fiscal 2013 (Publication of Research Results / Scientific Periodicals)” on July 25, 2012, hoping to learn the details of the reform. The program consisted of three lectures by Mr. Masaru Osanai from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science on “Direction of the Reform of Grants-in-aid for the Publication of Scientific Periodicals,” Ms. Kazuko Yamashita from the Society of Chemical Engineers, Japan on “Report on the Scholarly Journal Promotion Activities and Future Prospects,” and Mr. Makoto Kikuchi from the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science on “Current State and Problems of the Publication of the English-language Journal by the Japan Association for Philosophy of Science,” with each presentation followed by a question and answer session.

The “reform” of the grants-in-aid program referred to by Mr. Osanai means a shift “from the dissemination of information via print media to the international dissemination of information in the form of digital data.” According to Mr. Osanai, efforts to strengthen the international dissemination of information will be included in the criteria for evaluation. More specifically, whether or not an applicant publishes e-journal that is or is to be made available on an open access basis will be evaluated. The new criteria will be applied starting from fiscal 2013 (April 2013 through March 2014).

Mr. Osanai’s presentation was followed by those of Ms. Yamashita and Mr. Kikuchi. Both of them discussed the importance of taking an international viewpoint, pointing to the need for academic societies to collaborate with each other and the significance of publishing journals in English or other European languages. As a researcher, I quite agree with their arguments drawn from their own experiences.

In what follows, I would like to share my thoughts based on what I learned at the seminar.

Looking to the future, it is necessary for Japanese academic societies to take an international viewpoint in promoting research and proactively provide opportunities for collaboration with researchers from overseas. Measures to avoid the “Galapagos syndrome” or compartmentalization of research should be taken. In this sense, I support the general idea of the reform of the grants-in-aid program. However, I am afraid that some academic societies will start voicing worries.

The JAA to which I am a member is one of those academic societies in the humanities discipline. However, many of its members have contacts with U.S. and European researchers and/or engage in collaborative research overseas such as archaeological excavation projects, rather than confining themselves to research activities within Japan. Furthermore, there are also those applying mathematical analysis to their research. As such, among the academic societies in the humanities discipline, the JAA is relatively well-positioned to shift to e-publishing. Many of those in the sociological discipline are also well-positioned. For instance, academic societies in the fields of politics, sociology, and journalism are capable to adapt to the changing needs and will be able to accept the reform smoothly and in a positive manner.

At the same time, however, I believe that some academic societies in the humanities discipline are ill-suited for e-publishing. For instance, I wonder how those in the fields of folklore and Japanese literature will respond. To be honest, the presence of these academic societies makes me feel compelled to ask why it was not possible to include scholarly journals in the form of paper media as subject to evaluation.

There is one thing I want to clarify my understanding about the publication of e-journals. I understand the necessity of publishing e-journals as a tool for international dissemination of information. I am curious how things are in non-English-speaking countries such as France and Germany. I would have been glad if the seminar had provided some information about how electronic media are being utilized in these countries.

There are few more things that I noticed while participating in the seminar. When it comes to discussing the grants-in-aid program, we inevitably listen to what is told in terms of how to obtain grants for the organization to which we belong (JAA in my case). I think this cannot be helped. However, after participating in the seminar, I have somehow come to think that we might be able to see the situation in different lights if we remove the organizational boundaries.

This is not to suggest organizational realignment of academic societies. Instead, what I have in mind is multiple academic societies jointly publishing an e-journal by initiating the move and inviting others to join or by responding to the invitation, whereby they would promote collaborative research covering a broad scope of disciplines with the e-journal serving as the interface. In order to do so, it is not enough just seeking collaboration opportunities overseas. We need to turn our eyes to those within our own country and create a new framework. It would be great if an academic society in the humanities discipline could get together not only with those in adjacent disciplines but also with those in the field of science and technology or biology to discuss a common theme. However, it is unlikely that necessary preparation will be completed in a short period of time. As such, I do not expect it to realize within this fiscal year.

Lastly, I would like to draw attention to the points that I found troubling as I listened to discussions at the seminar. In explaining the necessity of publishing e-journals, speakers cited Science and Nature as successful examples. These two journals are appropriate as examples for academic societies in the field of science and technology or biology. However, for those in the field of humanities or sociology, different types of journals should be cited. In addition, both of the above two traditional journals were already prestigious when they were published in paper form and I have great reservations to see them as our goals in exploring new e-journals.

I headed for the 4th SPARC Japan Seminar 2012, expecting that business models would be the central topic.

What is fresh in my memory about business models for open access (OA) publishing is the seminar held in February 2012 under the theme of “Burgeoning Open Access Mega Journals.” Mr. Peter Binfield, one of the speakers, predicted that open access mega journals, such as PLoS ONE will publish 90% of the articles in the world by 2020. The emergence of eLife, an OA journal published by research funding agencies comes at a time when we are beginning to feel the real possibility of OA model journals overtaking subscription journals in the market share. The leading research funding agencies of some countries, including the Wellcome Trust of the United Kingdom, was going to launch the OA journal with article-processing charges (APCs) waived for the time being. Is it because they decided that publishing on their own is cheaper than subsidizing APCs, or are they trying to destroy subscription journals even at the cost of profitability? I was expecting this sort of discussions. Prior to the presentation by Mr. Mark Patterson from eLife, the key speaker at the seminar, Mr. Koichi Ojiro made the opening remarks and Ms. Mizuki Ichihara explained the current trend of OA publishing, both of them focusing on business models. So, I assume they had the same expectations as I did.

However, Mr. Patterson’s lecture went against our expectations. He said that his support for OA publishing stems from his experience as a researcher in genetic. Data sharing in genetics led to the Human Genome Project (HGP) and the generation of more than 300,000 jobs. This, he said, is the very significance of making research findings open and accessible. Because of this background, Mr. Patterson said, his goal is not simply to make research findings accessible free of charge but to make them available for reuse. Indeed, throughout his presentation, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of allowing the reuse of research findings, that is, adopting the Creative Commons’ CC-BY license (which allows the reuse of published work, including use for commercial purposes, simply by attributing the work properly to its author or licensor) to make them available for free use. Needless to say, eLife will adopt the CC-BY license, link articles to the underlying original data, and encourage their use. In the course of his presentation, he also noted that addressing the existing problems with peer review is another purpose of eLife. However, he hardly touched on the subject of business models. It became a topic only in the Q&A session following his presentation, prompted by questions from the floor. And still, he confined himself to saying that they have yet to know a specific way to achieve sustainability but they will try to do so by making the journal powerful.

The subsequent panel discussion session started with a presentation by Mr. Hirohisa Saito on the Allergology International, the official journal of the Japanese Society of Allergology (JSA), which has shifted from the subscription model to the OA model, followed by Mr. Yosuke Kojima on Karger’s move to launch six OA journals in the forthcoming fiscal year and Mr. Hideki Uchijima on what libraries expect from OA journals. After that, the debate began and Mr. Patterson again emphasized the importance of reuse.

As Mr. Patterson’s presentation turned out to be completely different from what I had expected, I initially felt disappointed but I was caught by his enthusiasm for reuse. A future in which research findings are freely available for reuse would be wonderful.

However, as I reviewed a series of recent discussions on OA for the purpose of writing this article, I was reminded that it is no easy goal to achieve. OA that provides free access including reuse is referred to a “libre OA” whereas OA that provides free access but does not necessarily allow reuse is “gratis OA.” The difference between the two, which has long not been a big issue, is now becoming one of the focal points of discussion on OA. The question of which type of OA should be allowed is linked to the long-standing dispute over priority between self-archiving exemplified by institutional repositories (so-called “Green OA”) and OA publishing (so-called “Gold OA”). Currently, many publishers allow the self-archiving of articles—including those published on their subscription journals—under certain conditions. However, it is extremely rare to allow reuse including commercial use (because doing so means allowing other publishers to freely publish articles in their journals or make them into a separate publication for sale). Meanwhile, in the case of APC-based Gold OA, the cost of publication is already covered by the time articles are published and therefore reuse by other publishers would not cause any problem (OA publishing by leading publishers such as PLoS is mostly under a CC-BY license). Gratis OA is as much as Green OA journals can achieve and only Gold OA journals such as eLife can achieve libre OA. Therefore, supporting libre OA inevitably leads to supporting Gold OA, not Green OA.

Indeed, Research Councils UK (RCUK)’s recently announced OA policy places greater emphasis on libre OA and thus prioritizes Gold OA over Green OA, inviting protests from Green OA supporters. On the other hand, the RCUK policy is a boost to those pursuing Gold OA such as eLife. If governments and funding agencies require the adoption of libre OA, the flow of manuscript submissions is expected to shift away from subscription journals having difficulty adopting the CC-BY to Gold OA journals, as discussed above.

With the establishment of a viable business model, are we going to see Gold OA journals taking share from subscription journals or subscription journals evolving into Gold OA journals? And how will the behavior of eLife affect such future developments? And what will happen to Green OA then? The seminar was not about business models as I had expected. However, the theme discussed at the seminar, i.e., whether or not to allow the reuse of published articles, will determine the future of scholarly publishing, probably, in a more significant way than business models would ever do. As of my writing this, the very first article for eLife is already released ahead of the planned launch of the journal. The seminar turned out to be an occasion to realize that we must continue to pay close attention to the future move of eLife and further developments concerning the reuse of articles.