The rise of open access publishing of scientific research could jeopardise the entire academic publishing industry, according to the chief executive of Reed Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific journals.
Writing in the company's in-house Review newsletter, Sir Crispin Davis warned that asking researchers to pay for their work to be published but then making it freely available on the internet "could jeopardise the stable, scalable and affordable system of publishing that currently exists".
Sir Crispin, who received a knighthood in the Queen's birthday honours list for services to information and publishing, added that traditional academic publishers "safeguard the publication process and ensure that every research [sic] can submit their work for free, including authors from underfunded fields or developing countries".
The defence of Reed's business model, which relies on academic institutions paying hefty subscriptions for publications, comes as a committee of MPs prepares to report on the state of scientific publishing in the UK after an extensive review.
The Commons science and technology committee under Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP for Norwich North, heard evidence from both the traditional publishers and the new breed of open access publishers who charge academics to issue their work but then make it freely available to all on the web.
The open access movement has been gathering strength over the last few months and is due to receive a further boost this week. The UK's higher education IT body, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), is about to announce that it is offering a second series of grants to institutions, publishers and scientific societies who want to use the open access model.
Earlier this year JISC provided £150,000 of seed money to institutions including the Institute of Physics Publish ing, the Journal of Experimental Botany at Lancaster University, the International Union of Crystallography and the US-based Public Library of Science (PLoS). JISC is offering a further £150,000 and will be accepting proposals for consideration until the early autumn.
Reed has, however, made some concessions towards the open access movement.
Alongside the rise of open access publishers, such as BioMed Central and PLoS, some academics are pushing for the right to place copies of articles they write for subscription journals on their own websites. Reed has changed its copyright rules to allow self-archiving in this way.