While open access is gaining ground in national and institutional publishing policies, the question how the change to open access will happen is still unclear. Many countries have adopted large-scale journal flipping initiatives that aim to change the business model of publishers. This licensing-approach is probably one that is most likely to deliver results in the short run, yet it comes with disadvantages such as a) the exclusion of poorer players in the global research landscape, b) the reproduction of the dependence from traditional publishers, and c) the dependence from an analogue product (the academic article). The talk will therefore outline potential adverse effects of offsetting agreements and large-scale journal-flipping initiatives and discuss public infrastructure alternatives for open access publishing as well as the challenges in their adoption.
