Data · dataset · 2026
Request OA: journal responses to pre-publication requests for open access to company-sponsored biomedical research
Listed in ZivaHub
Description
<p dir="ltr">Presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP), 20–22 April 2026, Washington, DC, USA.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Objective</b></p><p dir="ltr">Pharma/biotech companies increasingly seek open access (OA) publication for their funded research, but are not offered the same options as non-commercial research funders.<sup>1</sup> <i>Request OA</i> is exploring whether pre-publication requests resulted in journals publishing manuscripts OA with the requested Creative Commons (CC) license.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Research design and methods</b></p><p dir="ltr">This 4-month pilot (28 April–29 August 2025) used template statements to request OA with specific CC licenses; pseudonymized responses with rationale were collected.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results</b></p><p dir="ltr">OA with CC Attribution (BY) requests were made for nine manuscript submissions to seven journals (<b>Table 1</b>).
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.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusions</b></p><p dir="ltr">Requests to journals can secure OA publishing, including with CC BY licenses.
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Funders are encouraged to make OA mandates/policies publicly available. Education is required to encourage expanded OA offerings. Data collection is ongoing.</p><p dir="ltr">Table 1. <b>Journal responses to pharma/biotech company OA requests</b></p><table><tr><td><p><br></p></td><td><p dir="ltr"><b>Articles</b></p><p dir="ltr"><b>N = 9</b></p></td></tr><tr><td><p dir="ltr"><b>Timing of OA request</b></p><p dir="ltr">Pre-submission</p><p dir="ltr">Submission</p><p dir="ltr">Acceptance</p></td><td><p><br></p><p>4 (44)</p><p>1 (11)</p><p>4 (44)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p dir="ltr"><b>CC license requested</b></p><p dir="ltr">CC BY</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-NC</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-ND</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-NC-ND</p></td><td><p><br></p><p>9 (100)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p>0 (0)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p dir="ltr"><b>CC license agreed</b></p><p dir="ltr">CC BY</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-NC</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-ND</p><p dir="ltr">CC BY-NC-ND</p></td><td><p><br></p><p>1 (11)</p><p>4 (44)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p>4 (44)</p></td></tr><tr><td><p dir="ltr"><b>Reason CC license request not granted</b><sup><strong>a</strong></sup></p><p dir="ltr">Not available to any articles</p><p dir="ltr">Not available to pharma-funded articles</p><p dir="ltr">Not available to commercially funded articles</p><p dir="ltr">Requires funder to have a publicly available OA policy</p><p dir="ltr">Requires funder to have a publicly available OA mandate</p><p dir="ltr">Requires funder to have an OA policy/mandate registered on open policy finder, formerly Sherpa services (openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/)</p><p dir="ltr">Other</p></td><td><p><br></p><p>4 (44)</p><p>1 (11)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p>2 (22)</p><p>0 (0)</p><p><br></p><p>2 (22)</p></td></tr></table><p dir="ltr">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).</p><p dir="ltr"><sup>a</sup>More than one reason could be given per journal response.</p><p dir="ltr">BY, Attribution; CC, Creative Commons; NC, Non-commercial; ND, No-derivatives; OA, open access</p><p dir="ltr"><b>References:</b></p><p dir="ltr">1.
Ellison TS, Koder T, Schmidt L, Williams A, Winchester CC. <i>BMJ Open</i> 2019;9(6):e028655.</p>
Links
Where it is published
- DOI doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.34022643.v1 ↗
DOI / persistent id · from zivahub uct ac za
Catalogue records · 1
- OAI-PMH record api.figshare.com/v2/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Af… ↗
metadata API · from zivahub uct ac za
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Medicine & Health · Open access
- Inferred from text
- Tabular 65%
Provenance · 1 source records, 9 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZivaHub | oai:figshare.com:article/34022643 | 5 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].anzsrc:field:461007 | mapping · zivahub uct ac za | vocabulary-mapper@1.0.0 | keywords['Open access'] |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:medicine-health | mapping · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:tabular | enrichment · zivahub uct ac za | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (65%) |
| description | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/description |
| license | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/rights |
| publication_date | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/title |