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the minimum. Nevertheless, we endorse the conclusion of the Open Road report that policy-makers should be cautious about pushing for reductions in embargo periods and other restrictions on use and re-use to the point where the sustainability of the underlying publishing model is put at risk.
9.10. Where appropriate levels of dedicated funding are provided to meet the costs of open access publishing, it is reasonable to expect that researchers should adopt open access as the default mode of publishing their findings. In that case, it may be reasonable for funders to require that embargo periods are shorter than twelve months. Such a requirement would need, however, to be phased in over a period of time which allows journals to develop open access routes where they do not already exist.
9.11. Where dedicated funding is not provided to support open access publications, and therefore researchers are unable to use this route, we believe that it would be unreasonable to require that embargo periods are shorter than twelve months. For in that case, with no direct funding support for an open access publication, it would be unreasonable to put the sustainability of subscription-based journals at risk. Moreover, in subject areas where the half-life of the articles in each issue of a journal is several years, there may be a case for a longer period
9.12. These issues are of particular importance for UK learned societies, as they seek ways to sustain their high-status journals, and also their scholarly and related activities. They are critical for the humanities and social sciences too, where open access has made relatively little progress to date, and there are doubts as to whether high-status open access journals are sustainable. We believe that there is considerable scope for the development of open access routes in these disciplines, and we do not wish to see a division over the longer term between those disciplines that embrace open access and those that do not. However, since the pace of change may be slower in some disciplines than others, subscription-based journals are likely to remain a significant part of the landscape for some time to come, alongside the development of open access via repositories. But embargo periods that are too short will put the journals at severe risk. Government and funders should therefore be wary of pushing too hard, too fast.
9.13. For all the reasons we have highlighted above and in the rest of this report, we recommend that the Government should take a lead in the European Union and in other international forums in promoting moves towards open access in the way we recommend in this report. A key goal should be to sustain continuing development of an environment that supports and encourages innovation from both established players and new entrants, in the interests of researchers and all who have an interest in the results of their work.
Universities
9.14. Universities have a key role to play in implementing our proposals. Some universities have already adopted policies to promote or require open access for
