Britain's Royal Society has given a thumbs down to the concept of open access publishing of scientific research, saying it would increase the cost of funding UK scientists, thereby potentially reducing the number of grants awarded.

"The Royal Society wholly supports the widest possible dissemination of science, particularly to developing countries,” said the organization's vice president, John Enderby. “However, we are concerned that the model currently proposed for 'open access' journals, where scientists pay a fee for each paper they have published, is an unsustainable one which could also significantly impact on UK science funding.”

The society, Britain's national science academy, is due to give evidence on Monday (March 8) to a hearing of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology. The committee, made up of politicians, is investigating scientific publishing in the UK and is hearing evidence from a range of sources.

The Royal Society's view is at odds with that of the Wellcome Trust, which distributed £400 million to the life sciences this year in funding grants. European and US institutions have also supported the open access movement.

Based on calculations for the 300 scientists supported through the University Research Fellowship (URF) scheme, most of which is funded by the UK government, the Royal Society estimates that an extra £1.96m per year would need to be found in order for these scientists to publish their work in scientific journals if they were required to pay a fee per paper.

"The implication of these calculations is that changing from a system of library subscriptions to one where scientists have to pay a fee for each scientific paper published would significantly impact on the way in which science is funded in the UK,” Enderby said. “Charitable organizations like the Royal Society, as well as the UK research councils, would have to look to the Government to increase funding if this change was to have no detrimental impact on the level and quality of scientific research in the UK."

Jan Velterop, of the open access publisher BioMedCentral, which is a partner of The Scientist, questioned the Royal Society's calculations. “Often, funds for library subscriptions, among other costs, are taken out of the overhead portion of grants. In an Open Access model, the article charges could be dealt with in a similar way,” he told The Scientist.

Enderby acknowledged that the question of whether a shift in funding would actually cost the UK more wasn't clear. "What is yet to be determined is whether this is simply a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, taking money from library funds and adding it to research grants, or whether the overall cost for the UK science base of moving to an 'open access' model would change."

The society itself publishes journals on a subscription basis, and Enderby added: "At the Royal Society, 92% of our income from journal subscriptions is generated overseas, representing a significant injection of cash for UK science because, as a learned society, any surplus generated is used to support scientific research, science communication activities and public dialogue programmes. Other learned societies with scientific journal operations work on a similar principle."

Velterop expressed disappointment at what he called the Royal Society's “parochial view” of science. “Learned societies use their surpluses well, no doubt, but they should realize that their surpluses effectively represent subsidies from institutions and countries who may not be able to afford their subscriptions much longer, and that the UK institution libraries subsidize many similar scholarly societies abroad (rarely, though, in developing countries), rather cancelling out the perceived financial benefits for the UK,” he said.