Request OA: journal responses to pre-publication requests for open access to company-sponsored biomedical research
Year: 2026
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP), 20–22 April 2026, Washington, DC, USA.ObjectivePharma/biotech companies increasingly seek open access (OA) publication for their funded research, but are not offered the same options as non-commercial research funders.1 Request OA is exploring whether pre-publication requests resulted in journals publishing manuscripts OA with the requested Creative Commons (CC) license.Research design and methodsThis 4-month pilot (28 April–29 August 2025) used template statements to request OA with specific CC licenses; pseudonymized responses with rationale were collected.ResultsOA with CC Attribution (BY) requests were made for nine manuscript submissions to seven journals (Table 1). All were published OA; one under the requested CC BY license, but the other eight under licenses that restricted commercial reuse. Of these, two manuscripts could have had CC BY licenses if the funders had public OA mandates. One was not published with CC BY because it was pharma-funded.ConclusionsRequests to journals can secure OA publishing, including with CC BY licenses. Funders are encouraged to make OA mandates/policies publicly available. Education is required to encourage expanded OA offerings. Data collection is ongoing.Table 1. Journal responses to pharma/biotech company OA requests ArticlesN = 9Timing of OA requestPre-submissionSubmissionAcceptance 4 (44)1 (11)4 (44)CC license requestedCC BYCC BY-NCCC BY-NDCC BY-NC-ND 9 (100)0 (0)0 (0)0 (0)CC license agreedCC BYCC BY-NCCC BY-NDCC BY-NC-ND 1 (11)4 (44)0 (0)4 (44)Reason CC license request not grantedaNot available to any articlesNot available to pharma-funded articlesNot available to commercially funded articlesRequires funder to have a publicly available OA policyRequires funder to have a publicly available OA mandateRequires funder to have an OA policy/mandate registered on open policy finder, formerly Sherpa services (https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/)Other 4 (44)1 (11)0 (0)0 (0)2 (22)0 (0) 2 (22)Data are reported as n (%). Percentages may not equal 100 due to rounding. Journal therapeutic areas include: dermatology (n = 4), gastroenterology/hepatology (n = 3); oncology (n = 1), metabolism (n = 1).aMore than one reason could be given per journal response.BY, Attribution; CC, Creative Commons; NC, Non-commercial; ND, No-derivatives; OA, open accessReferences:1. Ellison TS, Koder T, Schmidt L, Williams A, Winchester CC. BMJ Open 2019;9(6):e028655.
Source: Figshare
Language: English
Subfield: Library and Information Sciences
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214734936