Australia has a sophisticated network of open repositories and a focus on establishing Read and Publish agreements. There is no unifying country-wide mandate, despite demand for one.

We outline the history of Australia’s mandates and its current policies for those looking to submit research or read it.

Open Access is the new paradigm

Open Access refers to a publishing model for scholarly research that makes information immediately available to readers at no cost. This research is also often free to reuse for scholarly purposes.

The benefits of publishing Open Access include gaining more citations and a greater impact, reaching a wider audience, advancing scientific innovation, retaining copyrights, and increasing the potential for collaboration and recognition. Open Access can also help institutions like universities and research agencies in low- and middle-income countries by removing any price barriers to accessing academic research.

History of Open Access in Australia

Australia has gradually increased the requirements for publishing work in an Open Access (OA) format. Here is a brief history of Open Access in Australia:

• 2001: The Australian National University became the first Australian university to establish an open repository for preprints.
• 2003: Queensland University of Technology mandated Open Access for all its scholarly works.
• 2003: The Australian Research Repositories Online to the World (ARROW) initiative was launched. This established a network of academic repositories.
• 2008: The Brisbane Declaration on Open Access outlined that all have the right to access academic work and that every university should have access to a digital repository.
• 2012: The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) declared that funded research must be made Open Access 12 months after publication.
• 2013: The community initiative Open Access Support Group (now, Open Access Australasia) was launched.
• 2017: Institutions and associations across Australia released a joint statement recommending that publicly funded research outputs should be made FAIR OA.
• 2022: NHMRC removed the embargo period from their mandate, requiring funded research be made OA immediately upon publication.
• 2024: The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) Board Position Statement on Open Access is released. This reinstates CAUL’s commitment to negotiating OA agreements with publishers.

The Australian Open Access movement primarily revolves around funder mandates and the development of repositories. There is a strong community thrust, stemming from Open Access Australasia and support from CAUL to establish Read and Publish agreements.

Current Open Access laws in Australia

There is currently no unifying Open Access mandate in Australia. However, two key funders and also some major institutions have mandates.

The NHMRC updated its OA policy in 2022. It requires that “all peer-reviewed publications arising from NHMRC-funded research be made Open Access immediately upon publication”. The update removed the 12-month embargo from the previous policy and strengthened it by requiring open licensing for publications, enabling sharing and reuse.

This can be achieved either by publication in an open repository or an OA journal. Further, the NHMRC also “strongly encourage”, but do not mandate, OA to research data.

Further, the Australian Research Council (ARC) mandates that all research outputs that come from ARC funding must be made accessible within 12 months from the date of publication.

As in the NHMRC policy, ARC-funded research can be deposited in an institutional repository or an journal if an open license is applied.

Establishing agreements and open science

CAUL’s 2024 statement emphasised its commitment to establishing Open Access agreements.

Jane Angel, CAUL’s Executive Director, explains further

CAUL firmly believes that Australia needs a multi-faceted open access strategy – or preferably, an open science strategy, in line with Australia’s adoption of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science.

This view holds that Open Access should be situated in a broader context of open science to enable diverse approaches to increasing access and reuse.

The community body, Open Access Australasia, holds a similar view, advocating for diverse approaches on OA and open research strategies nationally, regionally, and internationally. This is reflected in their expansion into Australasia after engaging with the academic community in New Zealand more.

University and repository infrastructure

Many Australian universities have OA policies or statements, with support from libraries and library associations across the country.

For example, some universities, like the Australian National University (ANU), mandate that all research outputs must be deposited in an institutional repository. The ANU mandate has a 3-month embargo and requires research data be made OA too.

On the other hand, universities like the University of Melbourne simply encourage or expect OA publication, but do not require it. The University of Melbourne states that “research outputs should be shared in a timely and accessible manner”. They encourage OA publication by providing support via infrastructure instead.

ARROW, established in 2003, is a national project implementing institutional repositories across Australian universities. This project has ensured that there is adequate infrastructure across the country for academic institutions to have their own repositories.

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) aligned itself with Open Access principles, supporting libraries in their efforts to achieving OA by

• Participating in debate and policy development.
• Raising awareness.
• Establishing and managing repositories.
• Developing digital archives.
• Providing economic and technical support.

Australia’s Open Access statistics

Australia is moving away from subscription-only to open publication of its scholarly research. Here are some statistics from Scopus:

• 2013: 64% of articles were subscription-only, 13% were green Open Access, and 11% were gold Open Access.
• 2018: 53% of articles were subscription-only, 15% were green Open Access, and 20% were gold Open Access.
• 2023: 35% of articles were subscription-only, 5% were green Open Access, and 56% were gold Open Access.

Australia has nearly halved its share of subscription-only articles over 10 years, with a large increase in gold OA publication. With the lack of an overarching mandate, these statistics highlight the demand and desire for OA publication in Australia, alongside the success of the country’s infrastructure.

Future trends

Australia is behind Europe and Latin America in terms of OA policies and monitoring. Policies vary across the country between universities and funding agencies, and there is no overarching policy that standardises requirements.

However, more than half of publications in Australia are gold OA, and there is a robust repository infrastructure. In 2021, the National Research Infrastructure Roadmap included a series of recommendations around increasing investment and further developing infrastructure.

Moreover, there is an ongoing debate about what shape OA should take in Australia. In 2024, Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley published advice on OA models. She advocated for free access to academic journal articles for all Australians and free access to anyone anywhere for articles with Australia-based lead authors.

She advocates for having a single national negotiating body to make OA agreements with publishers.

Read and Publish agreements

However, this advice received criticism. CAUL argued that “it will facilitate increased open access publishing only up to the limit of caps imposed by publishers”. This is referring to licensing, in that some Read and Publish deals may restrict the reuse and sharing of research, therefore limiting openness.

This stems from how, in Read and Publish deals, there is often an agreed cap on the number of publications included in the publishing agreement. Thus, once an institution or country reaches that limit, they can no longer publish more OA articles. The following articles would then continue to be published in the subscription model, or the individual authors would have to pay the full OA article processing charge.

Similarly, Mark Sutherland, Director of Open Access Australasia, describes the advice as being too narrowly focused on gold OA, not on publishing green OA through repositories.

In short, there is strong infrastructure and demand for OA in Australia. However, its lack of unifying policy and focus on Read and Publish agreements draws criticism from some organisations.

Value of Open Access

All articles published by MDPI are made immediately available worldwide under an Open Access license. This means:

• Everyone has free and unlimited access to the full text of all articles published in MDPI journals;
• Everyone is free to re-use the published material if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given;
• Open Access publication is supported by the authors’ institutes or research funding agencies by payment of a comparatively low Article Processing Charge (APC) for accepted articles.

Researchers can satisfy Australia’s developing Open Access policy and pre-empt any stricter legislation by publishing in an MDPI journal. Alternatively, if you want to publish an early version of your article, try Preprints.org, our service for publishing early versions of research that are not peer-reviewed and report on either ongoing or complete research.

Open Access makes vital information accessible to all readers and researchers and brings together scholars from across the world. Thus, it is ideal for tackling global that require urgent and coordinated attention.

Australia is growing its OA infrastructure and output and is supported by a strong community. If you want to learn more about Open Access generally, we have several articles that may interest you.