Let’s agree on something: written research is there to be read. It’s not there to be stuffed into the toe-end of a too-large shoe; it’s not there to wallpaper your study. Research that doesn’t reach some kind of audience, well it it’s rather pointless, isn’t it?

As the managing editor of the South African Journal of Business Management, I’m part of the team that ensures that research gets read. Together with the editor-in-chief, the editorial board and the publisher, I set journal policies that could make or break the journal. The first step to improve visibility is to flip to Open Access, which is precisely what I did when I joined the team over a decade ago.

Removing the financial barrier to readers is Economics 101: when cost falls, demand goes up. If it is free to read, you will have more readers. We found exactly this when we removed the cost to read by moving to an Open Access model: the readership of the SAJBM went up. Unsurprisingly, we had more submissions from authors, too. After all, why wouldn’t researchers want to publish their work in a journal that is accessible to anyone with an internet connection? If it’s a choice between that and a paper-bound journal that costs more than my shoes, I know what option I’m going with.

The Open Access advantage has been shown over and over again – in different journals, in different disciplines, in different countries. Do a quick Google Scholar search if you need the evidence. If you are an editor or part of an editorial board that isn’t yet Open Access, I would highly recommend flipping your journal. You would need to get your publisher to agree, and all of the good ones would. If you are a researcher, chat with your librarian about how to find Open Access avenues and how to get around those few that are still closed.

Open Access has secondary advantages. With access to more of the scientific record, researchers are less likely to try an experiment or test a hypothesis that has already been done or tested. Which saves both time and money, and accelerates scientific progress. We saw this with the research around COVID-19. More research on the topic was published Openly than on any other topic, and during the first months of the pandemic, it allowed researchers to find a solution to the multitude of problems it caused quicker (here’s a nice Open Access article that could tell you more).

Another advantage is that the science can be questioned because it is Open. And because it can be questioned, a greater degree of trust is built into what we develop from it. Before, a money-seeking individual could sell a crazy idea, claiming it was built on “scientific research”, and there would be no way for the public to explore if the crazy idea had a legitimate foundation. With the science being Open, the public can see on what basis advice is given or decisions made.

So what’s the catch, you might ask. The catch is the cost. Publishing has a cost, and if the readers aren’t paying for it, who is? Right now, it’s a combination of research funders, institutions or researchers themselves. Those with more funding (through whatever means) will find it easier to publish. Under-resourced disciplines, institutions, and countries are all at a disadvantage. Engineering gets more funding than Economics, the University of Witwatersrand has more resources than Walter Sisulu University, Spain contributes more to research than South Africa. The imbalance creates inequalities in our scientific record, which is only entrenched by Open Access funding models.

But this imbalance would not be corrected by closing our research to the readers again. If anything, it would be a step away from a possible solution. Because the issues in how science is funded are well explored and openly available, we have the best possible chance of crowdsourcing a solution to this problem and many others. I don’t have the answer, but thanks to Open Access, someday we will have one.

This opinion piece was written by Dr. Lara Skelly, Managing Editor of the South African Journal of Business Management.