Abstract

QUINTANILHA, Tiago Lima  and  TRISHCHENKO, Nataliia. Open Access and Scientific Knowledge: Between the Public Interest and the Business Model. A Literature Review. Comunicação e Sociedade [online]. 2021, vol.39, pp.203-222.  Epub June 30, 2021. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.39(2021).2756.

The discussion on what open access can give to science has become polarized in recent years. On the one hand, the first decade of the new millennium brought us an enthusiasm that one can consider as quite comprehensive in the scientific community, regarding the great potential of open access in the dissemination of knowledge, its sharing and the mechanisms of citizen participation in the scientific process. On the other hand, the last few years have brought us a new debate that addresses and criticizes the derivation of open access to a new business model. By supporting this article with an extensive review of the literature on a topic that is still residual in studies that intersect the areas of science communication and the field of ​​the economics of science, we propose to summarize the main reasons evoked by a side and the other. Among the positive points, we highlight the potential of open access in the dissemination of knowledge, the increased visibility of this knowledge, the involvement of society and professionals in the scientific process through civic participation logics, greater efficiency and interaction with benefits for the research projects themselves, the retention of publication rights by the authors, the redistribution of resources, and the greater transparency of a more scrutinizing model. Among the negative points, we can essentially highlight the inability to combat a kind of parallel science economy, which takes advantage of open access and the logic of academic overproduction, to establish the so-called “article processing charges” with little transparency and with publication rates often in excess of several thousand euros, which violate the principles of open science and generate inequalities in opportunities within the scientific community itself.

Keywords : open access; scientific knowledge; public interest; business model.

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