Making research Open Access (OA) is one major step in the process, but how do we know if OA research is having its intended impact? Ann Campbell and Katie Davison share the results of their investigations and some lessons for the future of OA.
Reaching OA’s potential
One of the principal aims of Open Access (OA) has always been to democratize knowledge by making research free to read; however, that should be the starting point, not the ultimate goal. Perhaps it’s time to step back and ask ourselves, “Are we in danger of becoming preoccupied with the ‘access’ aspect of open – neglecting the other components that make research successful?”
In our rush to remove paywalls and ‘financial barriers’, could it be that we are simply equating ‘freely available’ to ‘truly accessible’? How valuable is making research content accessible without it being discoverable? And how beneficial is it for an end user to find content if they don’t see its relevance, or if they can’t act on it?
Access alone isn’t enough. If research isn’t discoverable, understandable, or actionable for the people who need it (policymakers, practitioners, researchers across regions and community organizations), then OA has fallen short of its full potential.
The ability to get research into the hands of those who can fully capitalize on it is a crucial factor to research success, but in practice, significant gaps and disconnects are evident – particularly from a data and systems perspective. We have made huge progress in terms of the volume of research that is technically ‘open’, however we now need to find out who is actually benefiting.
Current narrative suggests that OA articles are more likely to be cited – but our data suggests this isn’t universally true, or at least that there is more to the story. In addition, citations alone don’t tell us who’s engaging with the content or whether it’s reaching communities outside of academia.
If equity in research means the ability to publish and participate in research fairly, (regardless of location, career stage or discipline), should we accept that the measure of success is whether an article has been published OA? Or should we be measuring success based on whether the research achieves its intended aims, reaches its intended audience, and enables meaningful participation across global research communities?
This blog will look at what ‘access’, taken in isolation, is and what it isn’t. Using data from Dimensions, extracted from the Dimensions on GBQ environment alongside World Bank data on GBQ, we challenge the notion that emphasis on publishing OA is enough to ensure equitable participation. We explore what happens when we focus on access without discoverability. We assess whether research participation is happening in a balanced way or whether there are barriers to journal publication – including but not limited to Article Processing Charges (APCs) – and engagement.
To help us with this, we have conducted a benchmarking and data interpretation exercise to understand the wider problem of participation in research.
SDGs case study
Let’s begin with a common assumption: that publishing is the ultimate goal for a researcher, and that lower-middle and low-income countries struggle to publish OA at the same rate as upper-middle and high-income countries due to the financial challenges associated with APCs.
The visual on the left (in Chart 1) shows us the number of gold OA articles published in 2023. This view alone might suggest that lower-income countries are being prevented from publishing OA compared to upper-income countries. However, benchmarking against the overall amount of research from these regions shows the reverse – low-income (LIC) and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC) are producing proportionately more OA content.
With this data in mind we dismiss the notion that a general analysis of open participation will drive further insight and shift to participation at journal level. For this analysis, it is useful to consider participation in these terms: where there is intent to contribute to a research topic, is that intent being met or prevented through journal selection and traditional impact measures?
To see this in action, we decided to focus this case study on Indonesian researchers’ contribution to SDG 4, Quality Education.
- We focused on Indonesia because in 2023 Indonesia was the second-highest producer of research articles among LMIC countries with a high amount of OA content. (NB: We will not delve into the reasons behind Indonesia’s high output in this piece.)
- We focused on SDG 4 because Indonesian researchers produced a substantial, and outsized, amount of Quality Education research. More than any other country and roughly 10% of overall research aligned to SDG 4 (as seen in Chart 2).
In a world where participation in global research was truly balanced and contributions to knowledge were reflected proportionally, if Indonesia contributes 10% of overall research to quality education, we would hope to see the 10% Indonesian representation happen at journal level as well.
To view this, we analyzed journals publishing the most research articles aligned with SDG 4 and benchmarked them against common markers for citation impact and attention. We then assessed the representation of Indonesian research within these journals. Specifically, we calculated the proportion of SDG 4-aligned research with at least one Indonesian-affiliated researcher, aiming for a 10% representation rate. The results are shown in the visual below (Chart 3).
Our journal-level analysis revealed that the desired 10% participation rate was not met. There was an imbalance within the journals around the level of Indonesian research present. Notably, this imbalance occurred across varying access types and associated publication fees. At the top, Education and Information Technologies, our highest-cited journal, a hybrid title, showed ~2% Indonesian representation. Education Sciences, a gold title that scored middle-ish for citation average, has less than 1%. The largest portion of Indonesian research appeared at the bottom left in two diamond-access, regional titles where we saw lower average scores in both citation and attention.
Therefore, a barrier may be the APCs; usually higher for market leading, established journals. (We’d highlight that Cogent Education is the closest to meeting the 10% participation rate and is a publication that does charge an APC but also offers waivers for LIC and LMIC countries.) However, this is just one of many potential barriers to equitable participation and one addressed by programs like Research4Life and publisher-led, global discounting practices. Our focus here was viewing the research holistically, taking into account how open practices have supported or hindered participation through both journal selection and research impact.
This view (Chart 3) highlights the challenge seasoned publishers face in balancing publication preferences, what motivates or prevents a researcher to select that journal, and readership habits, which encompass both accessibility and discoverability, the kind of discoverability established journals typically offer. The low metrics for the diamond OA journals (bottom left, Chart 3) illustrate the challenge for journals of ensuring research reaches readers.
Publisher mediation
To look closer at the intersection between the two sides publishers must mediate to ensure research meets its potential, we first focus on publication preferences. Many publishers aim to remove participation barriers so we can share quality research in a balanced, fully representational way. How can publishers work to ensure this proportional representation?
One approach is reducing costs of APCs, another is raising awareness. Emerald Publishing uses Dimensions data to benchmark the locale of research relative to our journal level subjects and try to balance Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) selection proportionally. This practice aims to inform publishers and editors where the research is coming from, without compromising EAB selection quality; addressing this at journal level regardless of access type or other unintended barriers.
The other aspect of this publisher mediation, and the one crucial to ensuring research is seen by the intended audience, is understanding reader habits. It is important to understand the benefits of making research openly accessible versus accessible, findable, and usable. Access in isolation, without the presence of discoverability to ensure the work reaches the end user, is not enough.
Below we can see the average citations for the top 100 most productive countries by access type (Table 1). We conclude from this brief view that hybrid titles generate more citation activity as they are the established journals that have an established readership base.
| Citation Calculation | Closed | Hybrid | Gold (APC charge) | Gold (no-APC charge) |
| Average | 1.9 | 3.0 | 1.8 | 1.1 |
| Median | 1.8 | 2.9 | 1.8 | 1.0 |
It is probable that the imbalance in Indonesian representation is shaped by the age and prestige of journals themselves. For the most part, Open Access journals are younger than their subscription-based closed counterparts, and because Journal Impact Factors (JIFs) are based on a two-year citation window, newer journals (both open and closed access) are naturally disadvantaged.
As a result, newer journals that cover emerging or interdisciplinary areas, such as research aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), may find it difficult to achieve similar visibility and ‘reputation’. This creates a compounding effect: newer OA journals may be more inclusive and open to geographically diverse contributions, yet they lack the discoverability and citation momentum of older, established titles.
In turn, researchers from countries like Indonesia are more likely to publish in regional, Diamond OA journals – which remain under-recognized in global research metrics despite playing a crucial role in local knowledge and research ecosystems.
This echoes the concerns raised in the Budapest Open Access Initiative 20th anniversary recommendations (BOAI20), which call for a more equitable and inclusive approach to Open Access – one that recognizes the value of diverse publication venues, fosters participation from underrepresented communities, and moves beyond outdated prestige indicators.
This points to a deeper issue: when discoverability and prestige are unequally distributed across journals, people may judge research quality based on where it’s published, rather than on the actual quality of the research.
A pattern emerges
This brings us to further consider the practice of prioritizing access above all else, how this may perpetuate bias in the system arising from assessing research quality based on its potential reach, and how that can be hindered by the journal itself.
We examined the quality of Indonesian research in high-output titles and found that when venue and discoverability practices align, Indonesian research citations are above average, dispelling any assumption about overall ‘quality’ that may arise from most Indonesian researchers prioritizing access when selecting journal (Chart 4).
This prompted a further question: Even when quality is demonstrable, is it being recognized globally? A parallel analysis examining citation practices across all low-income countries allowed us to test whether the patterns we observed with Indonesian research reflect broader systemic issues. We found a consistent pattern: research from low-income countries is often overlooked in citation practices, even when it is highly relevant and well-aligned with global priorities and even when it aligns closely with the focus of the citing publication.
In a parallel analysis, we found a consistent pattern: research from low-income countries is often overlooked in citation practices, even when it is highly relevant and well-aligned with global priorities and even when it aligns closely with the focus of the citing publication.
The parallel analysis examined global research output from 2013 to 2023, focusing on contributions to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), excluding SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) given its high proportion of research. Using author affiliations from the Dimensions database, we categorized publications by author country and matched them to World Bank income group classifications. This allowed us to compare research priorities between high-income and low-income countries over this time.
As shown in the chart below, there are clear differences in thematic focus. Researchers in low-income countries disproportionately prioritize areas like SDG 2: Zero Hunger and SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation – topics that directly reflect the urgent, lived realities in these regions. In contrast, high-income countries show a stronger focus on SDGs such as Affordable and Clean Energy and Partnerships for the Goals. These differing priorities demonstrate the local expertise and indigenous knowledge embedded in lower-income regions – expertise that, as shown in our citation analysis, is not being adequately acknowledged or cited in global research outputs.
In critical areas such as Zero Hunger and Clean Water and Sanitation – topics where low-income countries often hold deep, practical expertise – our citation analysis reveals minimal inclusion of their work by researchers in high-income countries. Specifically, just 0.2% of references in high-income country publications on these SDGs cite publications where authors are based solely in low-income countries. In contrast, over 70% of the references come from publications with authors affiliated exclusively with high-income institutions (74% for Zero Hunger and 71% for Clean Water and Sanitation).
Even when we broaden the scope to include any contribution from a low-income country, the numbers remain stark: 1.41% for Zero Hunger and 1.22% for Clean Water and Sanitation. This is despite the fact that these regions face the most urgent realities tied to these challenges – and who are actively publishing in these areas.
These findings point to a clear disconnect between where expertise exists and where it is recognized. In both Zero Hunger and Clean Water and Sanitation, areas where low-income countries have direct, practical experience, we see how research is vastly under-cited by high-income country publications. This underrepresentation suggests a missed opportunity to draw on locally grounded knowledge that could meaningfully shape global solutions.
Conclusion
This isn’t about a lack of relevant research. It’s about discoverability, visibility, and deeply embedded citation habits. Open Access isn’t just about making research available, it’s about making sure that research is seen, used, and respected within the global knowledge ecosystem.
Emerald has recently launched the Open Lab, which looks at the research ecosystem and how open practices impact it. Its goal is to find real solutions to some of the problems not yet addressed by open practices and some of the problems created by them.
We hope this analysis encourages thoughtful discussion on where the focus should shift thus allowing us to effectively evaluate the success of Open Access and help ensure that all research can meet its full potential.
Authors:
Ann Campbell, Technical Solutions Manager, Digital Science
Katie Davison, Insights Analyst, Emerald Publishing
The post Access vs Engagement – is OA enough? appeared first on Digital Science.
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