Project primer - Setting the stage for a 'different conversation' about open access

The Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) is launching a new project for 2025, bringing together publishing organisations with those who pay for, fund and invest in scholarly communication. This initiative, delivered in collaboration with Research Consulting, builds on OASPA's research and outputs of the past few years, following over 3,000 downloads of these recommendations on financial and workflow barriers.

This project primer is intended to frame a range of current challenges and takes you through three aspects of openness that need to be combined to provide a truly equitable scholalry communication system. At the end of the document, we pose several questions that we would like readers to carefully consider prior to attending project workshops or providing feedback via our open survey (accepting responses till 11 July 2025). Our goal is to help stakeholders across the scholarly publishing community embrace a more inclusive vision of open access - one that distributes benefits and responsibilities fairly, based on collectively determined priorities.