Academic publishing and open access: Costs, benefits and options for publishing research

Abstract

This article briefly sets out a political economy of academic publishing, exploring what the costs and benefits of this model are/were for the academic community. It then moves to explore forms of open access publication available to the social science (politics and international relations) community in the United Kingdom and beyond. The article concludes by asking why (given its likely advantages), the open access model is not ubiquitous and suggests that the future of publication lies in the hands of early career researchers.