The impact of open access (OA) research from Africa

Highlighting the enormous potential of research from Africa, this article showcases 10 recent OA articles by African researchers that have influenced policy.

View the story

The impact of open access (OA) research from Africa

How African researchers are influencing policy

Insights > Research impact > The impact of open access (OA) research from Africa

Africa is home to almost 18% of the global population.

And that figure is set to rise rapidly in the coming years, reaching 25% in 2050 and 40% by 2100.

Underrepresented

Yet, the continent is underrepresented in academic research. African researchers were involved in just 3% of global research outputs in 2022 and 2023 (source: Dimensions AI).

One of the reasons for this is a lack of funding, especially for research that addresses issues that are more likely to affect Africa, such as climate change.

Researchers also face barriers to accessing subscription-based research and less funding can prevent researchers from publishing their research open access (OA). This can further reduce the visibility and impact of research from Africa.

Making African research more visible

Our recent Transformative Agreement (TA) with the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC) aims to boost African OA research. It supports researchers from South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia to publish OA.

Alongside our partnership with Research 4 Life, the agreement also increases access to subscription-based research in these countries.

To mark the agreement and highlight the enormous potential of African research, we’re showcasing 10 recent OA articles by African researchers that have influenced the policies of organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (U.N.), the World Bank, the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), and national governments.

1. Quantifying international public finance for climate change adaptation in Africa

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), low and middle-income countries (LMICs) should get international financial assistance to prepare for, and adapt to, climate change impacts.

This study found that African countries are not getting the funding they need for climate change adaptation. Its authors include Kulthoum Omari-Motsumib and Dr. Christopher H. Trisos, both of the University of Cape Town.

The study has been cited in policy documents that address topics including pandemic recovery, climate change resiliency, and international relations. Organizations including the Council on Foreign Relations, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), the U.N. Economic Commission in Africa, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) have used the study.

2. Measuring the accuracy of infrared thermometers in health settings

Body temperature measurements (BTMs) are vital for monitoring infectious diseases. Health professionals take BTMs during many interactions with patients.

Infrared thermometer use is growing rapidly in clinics and hospitals across Africa because of convenience and cost savings.

This PeerJ study compared the performance of infrared thermometers with traditional oral electronic thermometers in measuring the body temperature of outpatients in a Nigerian hospital.

The researchers found that infrared thermometers may be less accurate than traditional oral thermometers.

The study is cited in this paper on temporal thermometers by Canada’s Drug Agency.

man, face mask and nurse with thermometer for healthcare check up in hospital clinic

3. Effects of groundwater overpumping in Egypt

The East-Oweinat area of Egypt is important for agriculture due to its high groundwater potential and Government investment. Groundwater is the only source of water in the area. The size of cultivated areas and the number of drilled wells are increasing year-on-year.

This study by Sawsan Moselhy Mohamed Ibrahem of the Egyptian Government’s Desert Research Center (DRC) examined the effects of groundwater over-pumping on the sustainability of the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer in the East Oweinat area.

The study featured in this U.N. report on sustainable water management in the Arab region.

Farmer opens a small water canal in farmland in Egypt

4. The political economy of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation

The market for sugar-sweetened drinks is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa. These drinks are linked with weight gain and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. These diseases are becoming more common in Africa and have a significant economic impact on the region.

This article, published in a special issue of Global Health Action, examines beverage taxation and highlights opportunities for reducing NCDs linked to sugar-sweetened drinks. One of its recommendations is public health communications that show the economic impact of diagnosing and caring for people with NCDs.

Organizations that have used the research include the WHO and the World Bank. The article is cited in reports on subjects such as financing health interventions and improving how unhealthy products are taxed.

Researchers from South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Rwanda, and Botswana contributed to the research.

5. Women’s capacities for agricultural innovation in Kenya and Nigeria

Researchers suggest women may have less freedom than men to venture outside their homes and beyond in some cultures. In an agricultural setting, this can limit their access to seeds and fertilizers, and prevent them from getting involved in farming groups, training, and other information exchanges.

This study investigated how cultural norms in some African regions affected women’s ability to engage with agricultural innovation processes.

It examined the effect on women, men, and farming in general.

The research is cited in The status of women in agrifood systems U.N FAO report.

Woman with child on her back, hoeing between pepper plants, The Gambia, West Africa

6. Reviewing bacterial resistance to antibiotics

This review by researchers at Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt examined the existing research on bacterial resistance to carbapenems.

Carbapenems are types of antibiotics that can be used to treat severe bacterial infections. Bacterial resistance to carbapenems is a serious public health threat, as it prevents some diseases from being treated.

The review focused on why resistance happens, the history and spread of resistance, and how to detect carbapenem resistance in infections. It also discusses possible options for treatment.

The review is cited in this WHO Global antimicrobial resistance and use surveillance system (‎GLASS)‎ report.

Close-up of bacteria and mold growing in a Petri dish

7. Implementing inclusive education in South Africa

Teachers play a key role in inclusive learning, which gives everyone the right to quality education.

This paper identifies resources for the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN). It examines the workload and training of teachers and identifies good practices in implementing the inclusion of learners with SEN.

Its findings are cited in this World Bank report on delivering inclusive education in Africa and Asia.

A primary school choir singing, Katlehong Township, South Africa

8. Using geothermal heat pump systems to cool buildings in hot climates

It’s estimated around a third of the energy used in buildings worldwide is related to cooling. Much of this energy is from fossil fuels.

This study by researchers based in Egypt examines how geothermal heat pump systems, which take their energy from under the surface of the earth, can cool buildings in hot and dry climates.

The study found a 19.7% reduction in electricity consumption and carbon emissions in buildings that use geothermal heat pump systems.

Authors at the Center for Global Development (CGD) cited the study in a report on the labor skills needed for a transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.

9. Measuring Maternal Near Miss (MNM) in a middle-income country

The WHO Maternal Near Miss (MNM) approach is a set of steps that can be used to audit and improve the quality of maternal healthcare.

It focuses on women who survived life-threatening conditions during childbirth and pregnancy. Whether the approach is effective depends on the setting and resources available.

This study examined how the WHO’s Maternal Near Miss (MNM) approach can be used in Namibia and other middle-income countries to reduce deaths due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth.

The study is cited in this WHO bulletin article on providing maternal healthcare in low-resource settings.

A mother and her newborn child lay in bed in the anti-natal unit of a hospital in Dedza, Malawi

10. Mobile phones, gender, and female empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa

This study explores the relationship between phone usage, female empowerment, and chronic poverty, and its repercussions on education and entrepreneurship. The researchers surveyed young people across urban and rural locations in Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa.

It found that while phone ownership provides some benefits, it can also lead to emotional and physical abuse, learning disruption, harassment from men and boys, and many other negative effects.

The study’s findings were featured in this PEP paper on measuring poverty in Togo.

You might also like:

See all insights and blogs

Five open access books that have impacted policy

Read about five Taylor & Francis Open Access books that have directly influenced recent policy documents from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world.

View the story

Five open access books that have impacted policy

Insights > Research Impact > Five open access books that have impacted policy

By Leah Kinthaert, October 2023

In a 2020 study, data scientist Mike Taylor used Altmetric data to look at over 32,000 books and 220,000 chapters, specifically in the Social Sciences and Humanities. He discovered that “both OA books and chapters have significantly higher use on social networks, higher coverage in the mass media and blogs, and evidence of higher rates of social impact in policy documents,” concluding that “the apparent OA altmetrics advantage suggests that the move towards OA is increasing social sharing and broader impact.” He found OA books to be particularly advantageous when it comes to impacting policy: “proportion of OA books getting attention is higher” for Policies by a factor of 3.2.

We analyzed Dimensions data at Taylor & Francis this August, and for the 1,800+ OA books we’ve published since we launched our Open Access Books Program in 2013, we found that a typical OA book has more than double the number of citations than a non-OA book. OA books content has been accessed over 2 million times via our website, taylorfrancis.com, with readers from 4,000+ institutions and 100+ countries accessing our OA book content. To try and get a better picture of and see how some of our books are impacting policy specifically, we did a deep dive into that data from Altmetric.

What follows are five Taylor & Francis open access books, that have directly influenced recent policy documents published in the past five years, from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world.

These include the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank, and The Publications Office of the European Union.

The body (of evidence) politic

Research-policy engagement has proven to be a challenge for both researchers and policymakers, in terms of getting research out there (organizational and structural barriers), and making sure research is translated out of academia-speak for policymakers to understand and utilize. Ironically, the very style that academics use tends to be tentative, using modal verbs to avoid suggestion of bias. This sort of writing isn’t naturally convincing, so the data put forth must do all of the work and carry the weight of the intended communication.

Justin Parkhurst’s open access book, “The Politics of Evidence,” brings up another barrier for engagement, that of politics.

The abstract of Parkhurst’s book explains: “There has been an enormous increase in interest in the use of evidence for public policymaking, but the vast majority of work on the subject has failed to engage with the political nature of decision making and how this influences the ways evidence will be used (or misused) within political areas.”

His book has been cited in policy documents from four organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization, the Overseas Development Institute, and the Publications Office of the European Union.

In the last policy document of this list, published in July 2022 and titled “Assessing national institutional capacity for evidence-informed policymaking,” Parkhurst’s work is utilized as part of the document’s “guiding principles from the literature on evidence-informed policymaking.”

The foreword for this EU report states: “As policy issues become increasingly complex and interconnected and politics ever more polarised, robust institutions that ensure that scientific knowledge is mobilised, synthesised, translated for, and integrated into the policymaking process become increasingly relevant.”

The authors provide four guiding principles for evidence-informed policymaking, which include: transparency (“Clear and transparent processes to generate and assess evidence engender confidence in the findings”), quality and rigour, credibility and legitimacy (“what political scientists refer to as input/output/throughput legitimacy”), and trust, the first three of these taken directly from Parkhurst’s book.

Read the policy paper here, and the open access Taylor & Francis book here.

A toxic testament to human activity

Reports of toxins found in bodies of water have made a significant splash on the headlines lately. From the pup in the UK who died this past summer not long after ingesting algae in a lake, to the toxic algal bloom in a Florida lake so large it can be seen from space, humans have upset what was once a delicate natural balance.

A new joint report from the FAO, IOC, and IAEA explains how we’ve managed to brew this rather deadly stew: “Globally, there are 3,400 to 4,000 described species of marine microalgae but only 1 to 2 percent are considered to be harmful. The generic term ‘harmful algal bloom’ includes proliferations of microalgae in marine or brackish waters that can cause water discolouration and massive fish kills, contaminate seafood with toxins, or alter ecosystems and services in ways that humans perceive as detrimental.“

“The impacts and mass mortalities of marine species caused by harmful algae are not new and have been recorded for decades. However, there is growing concern that these events will increase due to accelerating global warming, climate change and anthropogenic activities.”

This report cites a Taylor & Francis book, “Toxic Cyanobacteria in Water: A Guide to Their Public Health Consequences, Monitoring and Management,” as a good resource for freshwater cyanobacteria blooms, calling the book “comprehensive.”

In the open access book, published by CRC Press in conjunction with WHO, editors Ingrid Chorus and Martin Welker provide some historical context: “Cyanobacteria have been present in natural ecosystems since the Precambrian Era, some 2 billion years ago, and the production of cyanotoxins is probably an equally ancient characteristic.“

“The first scientific report on toxic cyanobacteria dates from the late 19th century, but earlier historical records have been interpreted as similar poisoning events … In comparison with more recent sediments, in most cases, the assumed historic concentrations were, however, much lower than those found in today’s eutrophic lakes.“

Chorus and Welker continue: “In large parts of the world, waterbody eutrophication started accelerating in the middle of the 20th century, in the wake of urbanisation and industrialisation. Since that time, massive cyanobacterial blooms have occurred in many lakes and reservoirs in which this phenomenon was not known before. Therefore, it is not the biosynthesis of toxins itself that created a new health hazard, but the more recent significant proliferation of toxic cyanobacteria in water bodies as a result of human activities.“

“This health hazard most probably will gain growing importance as cyanobacterial blooms are expected to increase at the scale at which eutrophication is expected to increasingly occur in many regions of the world.”

You can read the CRC press book here, and the FAO study here.

A toxic algal bloom outbreak overwhelmed the Pahokee Marina in April 2021, Pahokee, Fla.

Aye, robot

While “less than 5 percent of farmers across Asia, Europe, North America, and South America” are using automation on their farms, this is likely to grow substantially due to increases in costs for labor and chemicals, and a warming climate, which is reducing yields.

The policy paper, “The State of Food and Agriculture 2022: Leveraging agricultural automation for transforming agrifood systems,” addresses the potential for this revolution in farming, analyzing “the business case for adoption of digital automation technologies in different agricultural production systems across the world,” and “suggesting policies to ensure that disadvantaged groups in developing regions can benefit from agricultural automation and that automation contributes to sustainable and resilient agrifood systems.”

The 2022 FAO report explains that it “relies on four other background papers that summarize the evidence from literature and available data.” One of these is the open access Routledge book, “Transforming Agriculture in Southern Africa: Constraints, Technologies, Policies and Processes”. This 2019 book, which “draws on case studies from Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe,” was written with the “intention to be a valuable support for informing new policies and processes aimed at improving food production and security and developing sustainable agriculture in Southern Africa.”

Indeed, it succeeded, and is being used by the prestigious and influential FAO, whose extensive audience includes ”policymakers; donors; international organizations; academia; and journalists and researchers specializing in food security, agrifood systems, the environment and international development.”

Read the policy paper here, and the open access Taylor & Francis book here.

rice paddies at Jatiluwih Rice Terrace where the traditional subak irrigation system is applied for sustainable agriculture

Contesting the narrative

In the policy document, “Towards a more resilient Europe post-coronavirus,” published by The Publications Office of the European Union, the authors map out 66 structural risks facing the EU, and offer possible actions to “prevent or mitigate them.” One of the risks predicted in this 2020 report is a “new migration crisis,” and one of the causes for this crisis is COVID-19.

The report explains: “According to UN statistics, the global stock of migrants had been on a steady rise before the current health crisis, counting 271 million in 2019, of which 10.6 % were refugees and asylum-seekers. Refugee flows are more prone to sudden large movements, caused by conflicts, instability, and political persecution … The current health crisis is having a deep impact on migrants and migration. Travel restrictions have left migrants stranded all over the world.”

The authors of the report continue: “A prolonged health crisis will continue to hinder migration, through restrictions on movement, increased controls and personal risks to migrants. These trends also influence the patterns of human trafficking and migrant smuggling, which look for ways to evade barriers. With migrant worker communities among those most affected by coronavirus and its economic impact, future severe outbreaks could again drive mass returns of migrants seeking shelter (as already witnessed in India, or in the EU – back to southern Italy or to Romania).”

The most recent global estimate, from about two years ago, says that indeed the number of migrants (and refugees) has grown — the total number of migrants stood at 281 million in 2020, with over 32.5 million of them being refugees.

The report recommends that the European Parliament “as co-legislator can ensure a strong focus on solidarity between Member States and a human right-based approach. The EP can use parliamentary diplomacy to support international cooperation on asylum and migration issues in line with international human rights standards and the Global Compacts.”

Several books are listed as sources for further reading on the topic of refugees, including the Routledge open access book, “Europe and the Refugee Response: A crisis of values?“ This book, with its stance on immigration, has a decidedly human rights focus, which is in line with the “human right-based approach” the EU policy document has.

Editors Elżbieta M. Goździak and Izabella Main open chapter 1, “European norms and values and the refugee crisis: issues and challenges,” with a question. Their premise is that refugees are not the issue — the problem lies with Europe’s values. They explain: “These are indeed large numbers (asylum seekers and migrants), but do they constitute a ‘crisis’? Today’s exodus from the Middle East pales in comparison with the situation Germany faced, and surmounted, after World War II. At the end of WWII, there were some 11 million displaced people in Germany alone. They were slave laborers, prisoners of war, and Holocaust survivors. The Germans who had lived in Eastern Europe were being expelled from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary.”

They point out what they see as faulty immigration policies: “Deaths and suffering of migrants trying to enter Europe have become one of the defining moral and political issues of our time. Many humanitarian organizations and refugee advocates argue that these deaths result from Europe’s policy of exclusion and closure.”

They continue: “the arrival of several million newcomers in Europe in recent years presents real challenges, of course, but a prosperous European Union with a population in excess of 500 million has the means to overcome them, doesn’t it?”

Access the policy paper here, and the open access Taylor & Francis book here.

March in support of refugees in Cardiff, South Wales.

Using behavioral and cultural insights to solve health crises

The proliferation of illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease is considered to be a major public health failure. According to the Pan American Health Organization, “growing rates of obesity, poor diets, and lack of physical activity, among other factors, have contributed to a more than three-fold increase in the number of adults living with diabetes in the Americas in the past 30 years.” And the CDC reports that, “in 2020, an estimated 523 million people had some form of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and approximately 19 million deaths were attributable to CVD; this represents approximately 32% of all global deaths and is an absolute increase of 18.7% from 2010.”

A 2023 WHO policy document, “A guide to tailoring health programmes: using behavioural and cultural insights to tailor health policies, services and communications to the needs and circumstances of people and communities,” takes a look at these largely preventable public health crises in order to find solutions.

The WHO paper explains: “Some of the most persistent public health challenges are dependent on human behaviour. These include, among many others, overuse of antibiotics, use of tobacco and alcohol, suboptimal uptake of vaccination and cancer screening, lack of pandemic or sexual protective behaviours, and low adherence to treatment plans for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. These challenges place a weighty burden on health systems and on the health and well-being of individuals. They call for evidence-based action that draws on an understanding of these health behaviours and the cultural context in which they take place, and on engaging with those affected.”

This document cites the open access book, “Arts-Based Methods for Decolonising Participatory Research,” as a source of guidance on research methods “appropriate for behavioural and cultural insights.”

What exactly is participatory research? And what does it mean to ‘decolonize’ such research? The editors, Tiina Seppälä, Melanie Sarantou, and Satu Miettinen, explain in their introduction what participatory research looks like: (it is) “research that supports the perspectives, needs and interests of the research participants in their place-based and cultural con-texts.” They continue: “Decolonising design, through practices and thinking, seeks to question dominant narratives and relationships of power that perpetuate delocalised and disembodied perspectives of the Global North/West and eliminate other ways of knowing.”

They refer to the writings of Kenyan author and academic, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, in order to explain how art can be used to work towards this decolonization: “fiction, drama and poetry (are used) as ways to reconnect with broken roots of the past: first, by looking at the past critically and, second, by helping build healthy societies.”

You can continue reading about decolonizing research here.

Signs at a small town exhibition. Fraser Valley, BC Canada

Celebrating 10 years of open access books

Open access content is far more likely to be downloaded and cited, and research has found that open access book chapters are downloaded seven times more than non-OA titles. In addition, OA books were cited 50% more, and mentioned online 10 times more. With statistics like these, it’s not surprising that OA books are valued in policy documents aimed at solving the world’s problems.

OAPEN explain the benefit in their article, “Why publish open access?”: “Publishing open access means your book or chapter can be read, reviewed, shared and cited without depending on readers buying it or libraries stocking it. Open access therefore greatly increases the opportunities for your work to be read widely and to have an impact on the world.”

At Taylor & Francis, we’ve been publishing open access journals since 2006, and in 2013 we complemented these with our Open Access Book Programme. We’re celebrating 10 years of publishing open access books right now! Learn more about open access book publishing here.

Find more tips for increasing your research impact here.

Stylized collage of people with multiple skin tones on either side of the earth.

12 must-read open access (OA) books

Open access (OA) books have a higher research impact – discover 12 of the best as chosen by expert editors and publishers.

View the story

12 must-read open access (OA) books

Tackling urgent global challenges with open access research

Insights > Research impact > 12 must-read open access (OA) books

From fighting disinformation to tackling climate change and identifying new diseases, open access (OA) books give researchers a greater platform to help solve urgent global issues.

Anyone – from policymakers in the world’s governments to students researching an assignment – can read, download, and share OA research freely.

This can result in more media coverage and a higher number of citations in research and policy documents.

Impact and influence

We’ve published more than 1,800 OA books and thousands of chapters since we launched our Open Access Books Program in 2013.

These are more likely than non-OA books to have been mentioned in the news media, and a typical OA book from our collection has more than double the number of citations (sources:  Altmetric and Dimensions).

Many OA books perform even better than this. The OA book The Psychology of Fake News has received around 32 times more citations than the average for publications in the same field.

10 years of OA books

Our editorial experts commission, assess, and publish hundreds of books each year.

To mark 10 years since we published our first OA book, Negotiating Bioethics, we asked 12 of our editorial experts to recommend their must-read OA book:

Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism
Federalism and the Response to COVID-19: A Comparative Analysis
Bitcoin and Beyond: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Global Governance
Managing Emotion in Design Innovation
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality
Groupwork with Refugees and Survivors of Human Rights Abuses: The Power of Togetherness
Sport Stadiums and Environmental Justice
The Psychology of Fake News: Accepting, Sharing, and Correcting Misinformation
On the Significance of Religion for Human Rights
Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Responded to COVID-19
Noncommunicable Diseases: A Compendium
RNA, the Epicenter of Genetic Information

Read on to access and download these books and find out why our experts recommend them.

If you’re an author or funder, you can also find out how we can support you to publish OA books. If you’re a librarian, you can find out how to help your institution access and publish OA books.

Close up of a pipette and various scientific equipment

Rohingya refugees sit on a Bangladesh Navy ship

A dry river bed in Africa with a wooden boat

Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism

Edited by Henrik Skaug Sætra

Nominated by: Elliott Morsia, PhD, Editor (Computer Science)

“Technology and Sustainable Development demonstrates the role of open access in making relevant research available to readers outside of academia. It focuses on many of the practical challenges facing our governments and societies globally at a time of unprecedented technological change.

“In the book, edited by Henrik Skaug Sætra, a range of experts address the potential of technology to both solve and exacerbate pressing global issues. These include gender inequality, the climate crisis, the mistreatment of minorities, and the unequal distribution of power.

“It looks at the impact of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, social media, and big data. It also considers the need for greater social and political control of developments in these areas.

“Technology and Sustainable Development is a vital resource for researchers, policymakers, politicians, and anyone with an interest in tackling the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face.”

Recommended chapter: Key Concepts: Technology and Sustainable Development

Read or download the book

A vital resource for anyone with an interest in tackling the social, economic, and environmental challenges we face…

Federalism and the Response to COVID-19: A Comparative Analysis

Edited by Rupak Chattopadhyay, Felix Knüpling, Diana Chebenova, Liam Whittington, and Phillip Gonzalez

Nominated by: Aakash Chakrabarty, Senior Commissioning Editor (Politics and International Relations)

“This is perhaps the first book that delves into how the federal and quasi-federal governments of 22 nations from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“While the constitutional power to deal with national disasters and emergencies rests with the federal government, the delivery of health services is often the remit of states, provinces, cantons, or local governments. The pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge that tested the very foundations of these political systems.

“This book examines the collaborations, contestations, and negotiations between federal governments and their local counterparts and maps the successes, failures, and policy and governance evolutions of these diverse polities.”

Recommended chapter: Federalism and the COVID-19 Crisis

Read or download the book

Bitcoin and Beyond: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Global Governance

Edited by Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

Nominated by: Jeremy North, Books Managing Director

“Blockchain-based activities have fueled utopian promises and dystopian fears regarding applications of the emergent technology to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“This edited collection brings together scholars of anthropology, economics, science and technology, and sociology in assessing the implications posed by cryptocurrencies and blockchains for contemporary global governance. Its interdisciplinary contributions provide academics, policymakers, industry practitioners, and the general public with a more nuanced understanding of the novelty and breadth of blockchain-based activities.

“First published in 2017, the book is now in the top four most downloaded books across all of the 26,000+ titles hosted on the OA book platform OAPEN (OAPEN Foundation, Stakeholder Report 2022).

“Bitcoin and Beyond is one of more than 100 books that have been published OA at no cost to authors through our partnership with Knowledge Unlatched (KU). Under the KU crowdfunding model, libraries around the world unite to support the publication costs to convert both brand new books as well as previously published titles to open access, to enable access for all to important new research.”

Recommended chapter: Governing What Wasn’t Meant to be Governed

Read or download the book

This book is one of more than 100 books that have been published OA at no cost to authors through our partnership with Knowledge Unlatched (KU)

Managing Emotion in Design Innovation

By Amitoj Singh

Nominated by: Dr. Gagandeep Singh, Senior Publisher (STEM)

“Product design is not just about how an item functions, but how it makes us feel. Understanding how that works can be a powerful tool in design innovation and for this reason it is under increasing scrutiny by manufacturers.

“This book explores that in an original way, providing a comprehensive review of approaches and methods for the study of emotion related to product design.

“This overview, from subjective self-reporting methods to computerized tools for measurement of facial expressions, eye movements, and psychophysiological signals, is a valuable resource for researchers and designers of motorbikes and other emotion-laden products.

“The concepts explained can also be applied to macro-level study related to emotional/cultural research, underlining relations between the emotive needs of consumers and the emotive qualities of products for product styling in general.”

Recommended chapter: Evolution of Research Methodology

Read or download the book

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improving Air Quality: Two Interrelated Global Challenges

By Larry E. Erickson and Gary Brase

Nominated by: Irma Britton, Senior Editor (Environmental Science and Engineering)

“During 17 years with Taylor & Francis, I have published many books on air quality. But the problems don’t seem to go away – they are still present and sometimes alarming.

“Air quality has a significant impact on our life, and one of the ways to improve it is by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I recommend this short book because it answers the question, ‘How?’

“In the book, world experts in sustainability explain how to effectively address the transitions to electric vehicles, solar and wind energy, smart grids and electric power management, new and advanced batteries, and the electrification of agricultural technology – all topics related to better air quality.

“This is a book for everyone who wants to understand how humans impact air quality, how poor air quality affects us, and how to modify the decisions we make to reduce pollution and mitigate climate change.”

Recommended chapter: Air Quality as a Common Resource

Read or download the book

Groupwork with Refugees and Survivors of Human Rights Abuses: The Power of Togetherness

Edited by Jude Boyles, Robin Ewart-Biggs, Rebecca Horn, and Kirsten Lamb

Nominated by: Kate Hawes, Senior Publisher (Mental Health and Psychoanalysis)

“I’ve selected this book as it showcases an extraordinary breadth of work with people who have suffered involuntary dislocation and human rights violations.

“The focus is firmly on what, how, and why practical interventions have worked, and how similar work may be of assistance in the future.

“The commitment of the experienced practitioners who have contributed to the book is evident throughout – both in their generous sharing of the details of their work, and in their careful reflections on why certain approaches have worked with particular groups.

“That generosity continues in the fact that the book is available open access – the authors want as many people as possible to be able to learn from their experiences and for this type of treatment to be available to all who would benefit from it.”

Read or download the book

The authors want as many people as possible to be able to learn from their experiences and for this type of treatment to be available to all who would benefit from it

Sport Stadiums and Environmental Justice

Edited by Timothy Kellison

Nominated by: Simon Whitmore, Senior Publisher (Sport, Exercise, and Leisure)

“This book explores the local environmental impact of sports stadiums – including water and air pollution, displacement and gentrification, soil contamination, and transport accessibility – and how that impact can disproportionately affect communities of color.

“I think the book is a great example of how research on issues that are affecting real people’s lives, particularly in communities that have historically been subjected to unjust and inequitable treatment, can be given much wider visibility through OA research.

“For example, Chapter 6, Stadiums, Race, and Water Infrastructure, looks at the impact of two sports stadiums in Atlanta, Georgia, on flood risk for majority Black neighborhoods downstream of the stadiums, and examines racialized processes of urban transformation.”

Recommended chapter: Stadiums, Race, and Water Infrastructure

Read or download the book

Communities that have historically been subjected to unjust and inequitable treatment can be given much wider visibility through open access research

The Psychology of Fake News: Accepting, Sharing, and Correcting Misinformation

Edited by Rainer Greifeneder, Mariela Jaffe, Eryn Newman, and Norbert Schwarz

Nominated by: Lucy Kennedy, Senior Publisher (Psychology)

“In the words of the distinguished American psychologist, Elizabeth F. Loftus: ‘Fake news is a serious problem for politics, for science, for journalism, for consumers, and, really, for all of us. We now live in a world where fact and fiction are intentionally blurred by people who hope to deceive us.’

“I recommend this book, commissioned by Eleanor Taylor, my Editor in Social Psychology, as essential reading for anyone interested in public affairs, and especially for students, researchers, and applied professionals in the social sciences.

“It will give readers an important understanding of the psychological processes involved in the production, dissemination, interpretation, sharing, and acceptance of fake news, and what can be done to stop the spread of misinformation.

“My must-read chapter is the opener, What is New and True about Fake News?

“This introductory chapter explains how fake news is not just confined to the political realm but also infects marketing, journalism, and science. It also offers an enlightening bird’s eye view on the topics covered in the complete book.”

Recommended chapter: What is New and True About Fake News?

Read or download the book

On the Significance of Religion for Human Rights

Edited by Pauline Kollontai and Friedrich Lohmann

Nominated by: Catherine Bernard, Global Editorial Director (Humanities and Media Arts)

“Routledge’s OA series Religion Matters gets right to the heart of our humanities program by promoting rigorous thinking and challenging readers to contribute to the ongoing conversation of humankind around things that matter to us – in this case religion, and the vast role it plays in any number of intersecting global issues.

“Topical, interdisciplinary, and accessible, this slim but mighty 2023 series title furthers our understanding of the role of religion in the area of human rights. It uses case studies from Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as an engaging entry point into big topics and to draw clear connections between the often-separated spheres of academics, policymakers, and practitioners.

“Since the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as a dynamic frame of reference, I’ll highlight chapters 3.2 and 4.2. These juxtapose the hindrances posed by Hinduism in imparting human rights to women against the potential within Hinduism to overcome them.

“Many of the tenets discussed were new to me, so always exciting to learn more. Plus, I loved how the author showed the ways different socio-historical moments can influence the interpretation of the very same religious text as it relates to women’s rights as human rights.”

Read or download the book

Routledge’s OA series Religion Matters gets right to the heart of our humanities program by promoting rigorous thinking and challenging readers to contribute to the ongoing conversation of humankind

Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Responded to COVID-19

Edited by Nils Ringe and Lucio Rennó

Nominated by: Craig Fowlie, Global Editorial Director (Social Science)

“The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a situation unprecedented in human history, but also exacerbated many already existing tensions within society.

“Populist parties and movements have successfully created social and political divisions, and generated widespread distrust in institutions, the media, and authorities. The understandable fear and anxiety created by the pandemic allowed conspiracy theories and other forms of irrationality to flourish, often spread through social media.

“These created ideal circumstances for populists to exploit, as they played on their existing rhetoric of a divide between a supposed elite and ‘the real people.’

“At the same time as populists derided ‘experts,’ countries were reliant on medical and scientific professionals to advise governments on how to navigate through the pandemic.

“This book examines how a variety of populist actors responded to and exploited the pandemic.

“There is a tendency to see populism as a Western issue, but it has deep roots in Latin America and other countries in the Global South, and one of the book’s biggest strengths is the broad range of national case studies it includes.”

Recommended chapter: Populists and the Pandemic Introduction

Read or download the book

Noncommunicable Diseases: A Compendium

Edited by Nick Banatvala and Pascal Bovet

Nominated by: Helena Hurd, Senior Editor (Global Development and African Studies)

“As the COVID-19 pandemic surged in 2020, global attention was focused on infectious disease, but locked away in our separate homes, the authors of Noncommunicable Diseases: A Compendium and I were teasing out a very different global health problem.

“Noncommunicable (or non-infectious) diseases account for 71% of all deaths globally, and are intricately tied up in complicated lifestyle and policy dilemmas. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease have known risk factors, encompassing alcohol use, diet, physical inactivity, and air pollution; and so, in theory, it is possible for individuals, governments, and policymakers to work to reduce mortality rates. But where to turn?

“Authors Nick Banatvala and Pascal Bovet decided that the answer was a book of short, informed chapters written by the world’s leading experts, aimed at informing policymakers and public health practitioners, wherever they might be in the world.

“Right from the start, it was essential that the book should be open access and freely available to all, in order to spread the word and generate maximum real-world impact.

“Since publication, thousands of readers have benefited from the book’s unique approach of combining disease-specific insights with evidence-based recommendations for cost-effective and affordable interventions. Readers range from health ministers and public health experts to former prime ministers and presidents.”

Recommended chapter: Global Burden of NCDs

Read or download the book

It is possible for individuals, governments, and policymakers to work to reduce mortality rates

RNA, the Epicenter of Genetic Information

By John Mattick and Paulo Amaral

Nominated by: Chuck Crumly, PhD, Senior Editor (Cell, Molecular, Developmental, and Evolutionary Biology)

“The genetic material of coronaviruses is RNA (ribonucleic acid). During the COVID-19 pandemic, discoveries of the central role played by RNA dominated many scientific priorities, and vaccines developed to prevent COVID-19 infections were RNA-based.

“This OA book chronicles the history of DNA and RNA and the influence of biochemistry and genetics on molecular biology. Published in 2022, it has been viewed/downloaded over 150,000 times and reviewers have shared glowing commentary.

Tom Cech, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, calls the book ‘thrilling and provocative’ and adds, ‘There is a need for such a book… There’s nothing quite like this out there.'”

Recommended chapter: Overview

Read or download the book

Resources and related links

Impacting policy with evidence-based research: 5 open access STEM papers

Read about five Taylor & Francis open access research articles specifically in STEM topics, published in the past three years, that directly influenced recent policy documents from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world.

View the story

Impacting policy with evidence-based research: 5 open access STEM papers

Insights > Research Impact > Impacting policy with evidence-based research

By Leah Kinthaert, July 2023

Kim Dumont opens her piece, Reframing Evidence-Based Policy to Align with the Evidence, with an excellent explanation of research impact: “A central tenet of evidence-based policy is that society will be better off when research is used.”

The assumption is, that when policies are based on scientific evidence, they will be correct, and therefore effective in their goals. And a new study shows that evidence-based policy is also more likely to be enacted into law.

In their article, To Support Evidence-Based Policymaking, Bring Researchers and Policymakers Together, D. Max Crowley and J. Taylor Scott report that “a review of federal behavioral health legislation over the last 30 years found that bills that explicitly referenced scientific evidence were over three times more likely to be enacted into law than bills that did not. We found similar results in other federal policy areas, such as substance abuse and human trafficking.”

It is clear that, with evidence-based research in their hands, policymakers are directly empowered to make change.

At Taylor & Francis, we’re committed to helping our authors maximize their research impact. We did a deep dive into data from Altmetric, which monitors the reach of research through online interactions. We are proud to say that, in the past three years, we found over 1,000 examples of our open access research being utilized in policy documents. We then honed in on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and there were over 280.

What follows is a look at five Taylor & Francis open access research articles specifically in STEM topics published in the past three years, that directly influenced recent policy documents from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world. These include the World Health Organization (WHO), U.K. Parliament, The Publications Office of the European Union, the World Bank, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Stylized collage with hands of people with multiple skin tones reaching for the earth.

Improving the global diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy

The World Health Organization (WHO) tells us that 50 million people globally have epilepsy.

Their 2022 technical brief “Improving the lives of people with epilepsy” describes the actions needed to do just that, and implement the approach of “The Intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders (2022-2031),” adopted in 2022 by the World Health Assembly.

Citing several research studies including the open access paper “Dramatic outcomes in epilepsy: depression, suicide, injuries, and mortality” from the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, WHO gives the startling statistic that “the risk of premature death for people with epilepsy is estimated to be three times that of the general population, but this risk may be up to seven times higher in some low-resource settings.”

The WHO brief continues: “Up to 70% of people with epilepsy could become seizure-free after appropriate diagnosis and antiseizure medicines, which can cost as little as US$ 5 per year, and could lead full, productive lives … Despite this evidence, there is a treatment gap for epilepsy which means that more than 50% of people with epilepsy in most LMIC (low- and middle-income countries) do not receive the treatment they need.”

You can read the WHO report here.

Carbon dis-credit: How credible is the carbon market?

The U.K. Parliament’s Briefing “Blue Carbon” tells us that the U.K. is “legally committed to reaching net zero emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) by 2050” explaining: “Marine ecosystems around the U.K. can both increase and decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Carbon loss and gain globally by these ecosystems has the potential to influence climate change.”

In their POSTnote, they cite 93 research papers in order to give an overview of the marine ecosystems in the U.K. One of these papers is the open access article “Caught in between: credibility and feasibility of the voluntary carbon market post-2020,” from the journal Climate Policy.

While the U.K. Parliament Brief gives a thorough overview, it also explains that many questions remain unanswered, pointing out that “marine ecosystems in the U.K. have an estimated total carbon sequestration rate of 11 million tCO₂e/year, although this value is very uncertain, and higher estimates exist.”

Alongside this scientific uncertainty is also what they describe as “a weakly regulated” voluntary carbon market. The U.K. Parliament POSTnote asserts: “Carbon sequestration projects often employ blended finance, where projects are funded by a combination of public and private finance. In general, voluntary carbon markets are weakly regulated. This can cause problems for investors because they cannot trust the quality of carbon credits that they purchase.”

In their open access paper, cited in the POSTNote, Nicholas Kreibich and Lukas Hermwille focus on that weak regulation, analyzing “the plans of 482 major companies with some form of neutrality/net zero pledge.”

The researchers find a veritable can of worms: “All companies we analysed have announced some form of neutrality target, but many of the targets lack clarity in key aspects. Moreover, they differ in several ways: Some companies explicitly include all GHG emissions (climate or GHG neutrality), whereas others focus on CO₂ emissions only (carbon neutrality). For 97 companies, it remained unclear which GHGs are covered in the commitment.”

“Moreover, while most companies consider all direct and indirect emissions of their own operations, some companies seek to work with their business partners and even include emissions that occur further up or down the supply chain and are beyond their direct control … Also, the pledges differ in their timing. While the vast majority of the companies included in our dataset have a 2050 horizon, some companies, including two of the largest companies in the list, Google and Microsoft, claim that they have already achieved carbon neutrality.”

Candlelight vigil at the March 31 Square following the national meeting of journalists against violence against journalists in Mexico, in San Cristobal de las Casas

Being smart about intelligent agriculture

The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) is so ubiquitous right now that a Google search brings up over a billion results. McKinsey analysts Michael Chui and Martin Harrysson sum up AI’s importance: “AI is fast becoming an invaluable part of the human-development toolkit.”

The European Parliament Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) has investigated AI’s relevance to human-development, particularly as it relates to food production, with their 2023 study “Artificial intelligence in the agri-food sector.” The report affirms that: “Artificial intelligence (AI) could be a powerful tool in helping organisations cope with … increasing complexity in modern agriculture. Intensive data collection paves the way for growers, and all other actors in the value chain, to adopt artificial intelligence as a data-driven practice to gain more insights and, ultimately, better control the processes that affect producer income.”

The study continues: “(AI may) lead to more efficient production and improve workers’ wellbeing and animal welfare … AI is also an important tool for the automation and robotics that may relieve workers of drudgery.”

In the Executive Summary of the report, the authors acknowledge that there are ethical and policy issues that need to be addressed: “This study defines several issues that may require special measures or policy action to ensure all stakeholders have access to a fair and equitable participation in the benefits that AI may bring to agriculture.”

“Artificial intelligence in the agri-food sector” cites 91 research sources, including the Taylor & Francis open access paper “Managing the risks of artificial intelligence in agriculture” from the journal NJAS: Impact in Agricultural and Life Sciences.

In their paper, authors Robert Sparrow, Mark Howard, and Chris Degeling “offer an initial survey, and evaluation, of the ethical, social, and policy issues that are likely to arise as AI begins to impact on agriculture.”

The authors analyze current uses of AI in agriculture, as well as some of the proposed uses, along with highlighting “applications of AI in the broader society and economy that are likely to impact on agriculture.” They also look at benefits, risks, and ethics.

The team of researchers concludes: “Key questions that we believe should be considered in such deliberations (of whether to implement AI or not) include: how to ensure AI is used to expand sustainable agriculture rather than simply to intensify existing, unsustainable, agricultural practices; how to respond to the prospect of widespread job losses in the agricultural sector in the longer term; the risk that AI will exacerbate rather than reduce inequality; who should own data generated by AI and what they should be allowed to do with it; how to ensure that relations between farmers, seed and chemical companies, and suppliers of AI systems are productive and not exploitative; and, the philosophical and cultural implications of coming to see the world solely through the lens of ‘data.'”

You can read the European Parliament report here, and the Taylor & Francis study here.

A common sight during the COVID-19 epidemic, empty store shelves.

Global collaboration is key to disaster response and reduction

According to the Emergency Events Database, in 2021, droughts, floods, and storms created global losses of more than $224 billion, impacting the lives and livelihoods of millions.

In its report “Charting a Course for Sustainable Hydrological and Meteorological Observation Networks in Developing Countries” the World Bank addresses the importance of having systems in place to protect people from these natural disasters: “The World Bank’s development agenda is intimately linked … to hydromet (hydrological and meteorological) monitoring and forecasting to anticipate threats and opportunities posed by the environment. Application of this knowledge can ameliorate risks by protecting the vulnerable and reducing exposure.”

The World Bank explains that it aims “to help nations and development partners design fit-for-purpose and fit-for-budget sustainable hydrological and meteorological networks, (with) recommendations (that) are based on successful outcomes in higher income nations.”

One of the papers they cite is the open access article “Intergovernmental cooperation for hydrometry – what, why and how?” from the journal Hydrological Sciences Journal.

The researchers open their piece with the daunting statistic that “two-thirds of hydrological observation networks in developing countries are reported to be in poor or declining condition.” However, they offer hope in the form of an innovative initiative, which their paper explores, called the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Hydrometry Support Facility, or WMO HydroHub. Educating policymakers, researchers, and others about this initiative is essential, because the authors contend: “For those outside the immediate ‘WMO Community’ … awareness of how such an intergovernmental organization supports its Members and the tools it provides to society at large is sometimes less widespread. The mass of technical literature and network of interconnected initiatives can at first sight appear indecipherable.”

The study concludes: “The expansion of partnership is a key step in realizing the … achievements. This includes partnerships within the operational hydrometry community, with greater peer-to-peer support across National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) to address needs associated with water monitoring technologies, data management systems, and education and training. But, critically, it must also include much more collaboration between NMHSs and: (a) the communities developing innovative technologies; (b) regional water and disaster management organizations to facilitate data sharing and problem solving; (c) local water users to increase community engagement in water issues; and (d) national and transboundary entities tackling shared problems at large scales.”

Read the World Bank paper here, and the open access Taylor & Francis research here.

Villagers in a microfinance community banking group meet together to save and lend among each other in Masaka District, Uganda, East Africa.

Fixing the bugs when it comes to gene editing insects

Gene editing that inadvertently creates monsters has become a plot staple for many science fiction and horror movies and TV shows. This is no surprise, because it is still a relatively new technology that inspires a combination of fear and wonder, and mistakes – which tend to make sensationalist news headlines – do happen.

The importance of research when it comes to this awesome power of being able to change the very DNA of an organism cannot be overstressed. So science and evidence-based studies, such as “Gene editing and agrifood systems” from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), are crucial to providing insights on “the consequences for human hunger, human health, food safety, effects on the environment, animal welfare, socioeconomic impact and distribution of benefits.”

Utilizing over 296 research outputs, including an open access article from the journal Critical Reviews in Biotechnology, the FAO paper gives this summary: “Gene-editing technologies represent a promising new tool for plant and animal breeding in low- and middle-income countries. However, as for any new technology, they have their merits and demerits. There is, as yet, no international consensus regarding if and how gene-edited organisms should be regulated.”

The Taylor & Francis paper cited in “Potential use of gene drive modified insects against disease vectors, agricultural pests and invasive species poses new challenges for risk assessment” addresses that regulation when it comes to the modification of insect genes, and offers recommendations.

72% of the world’s crops require insects for pollination, and up to 40% of global crop production is lost to pests annually, so having the ability to control insects has been on farmers’ to-do lists for centuries.

Setting the scene, the researchers let us know that we are still in the very early stages of GDs (engineered gene drives): “While current research is investigating the development of engineered GDs in insect populations and deploying them, it will take many years before they can be applied to practical disease vector/pest management. At present, some GDMIs are either in development or have been tested experimentally in the laboratory, often with multigenerational data and model simulations. However, no “contemporary” GDMIs have been assessed in small-scale physically and/or ecologically confined field trials, or open release trials.”

The risks they put forth for gene-modified insects include a shopping list of ecological disasters: unintended spread beyond the target population; human exposure to toxic substances through consumption of GD-modified individuals; reduced quality or eradication of the GD-modified individuals where they are a food source; altered water quality due to the suppression of the target organism from algal bloom; and resurgence of “an intrinsically harmful target organism due to future failure of an engineered GD (e.g. genetic and phenotypic instability) or resistance to either the GD or its cargo/payload genes, possibly coupled with reduced immunity in human populations that have had a reduced disease challenge while the control was effective.”

They close their paper with practical recommendations for risk assessment: “To ensure that the risk assessment guidance for GDMOs is proportionate, practical and current, it may need to be tailored to the most likely cases moving to practical applications for release. It should also offer an overarching framework that is flexible and outlines general principles and methodology for risk assessment instead of being overly prescriptive. The process of guidance development must ensure an iterative process of design, revision, and refinement, including the review of actual case studies by risk assessment experts and consultation with relevant stakeholders.”

Read the FAO study here, and the Taylor & Francis paper here.

A muslim woman buying vegetables, Mercato of Addis Abeba, Ethiopia

Evidence-based research impacting policy

It is clear from these five examples that research, in particular open access STEM research, is indeed impacting policy.

It is wonderful that so much research is making it into the right hands, but much more needs to be done for those research papers published globally every year that do not have as much impact. D. Max Crowley and J. Taylor Scott, authors of The Social Side of Evidence-Based Policy advise that a new infrastructure needs to be built.

They explain: “Such an infrastructure may involve new roles for staff within policy organizations to engage with research and researchers, as well as provision of resources that build their capacity to do so. For researchers, this infrastructure may involve committing to ongoing, mutual engagement with policymakers, in contrast with the traditional role of conveying written results or presenting findings without necessarily prioritizing policymakers’ concerns. Intermediary organizations such as funders and advocacy groups can play a key role in advancing the two-way streets through which researchers and policymakers can forge closer, more productive relationships.”

Utilizing a theoretical framework proposed by Sarah Chaytor at University College London (UCL), the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Taylor & Francis have published a policy note that provides five functional elements for action for academia, decision makers, industry, publishers, and the wider public to support research impact.

Highlights of the policy note include:

Moving “away from rewarding competition to encouraging and crediting collaboration, openness, and transparency in the research and publication process”
“Giving credit for a wide range of contributions and contributors to research that have been historically ‘hidden’ from more traditional research assessment exercises”
“Recognizing the diversity of research outputs and contributions, valuing engagement with a diversity of audiences, and crediting researchers who openly and transparently share the outcomes of their research process.”

You can find the policy note “Why Open Access is not enough – how research assessment reform can support research impact” on our Research Impact Hub.

It’s also important to note that what we consider to be “research impact” is evolving, and will continue to do so.

Times Higher Education, for example, has challenged the traditional interpretation of impact, assessing universities on a combination of research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching, with their Impact Rankings. They are “the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” taking into account “differing national, regional and local contexts. This critical examination of how we look at research impact is a step in the right direction, to ensure that researchers will get credit for the important work they do, regardless of the prestige of their institution, or where they are in the world.

Five open access research papers impacting policy right now

Read about five Taylor & Francis Open Access research articles, published in the past two years, that have directly influenced recent policy documents from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world.

View the story

Five open access research papers impacting policy right now

Insights > Research Impact > Five open access research papers impacting policy right now

By Leah Kinthaert, July 2023

It’s imperative that research with the potential for world-changing impact reaches politicians and policymakers who have the power to make laws that affect peoples’ lives and livelihoods.

But is crucial research from academia reaching them?

A 2021 paper from Anna Hopkins, Kathryn Oliver, Annette Boaz, Shannon Guillot-Wright, and Paul Cairney asserts that “research-policy engagement is under-theorized and under-evidenced, with new activity outstripping research capacity to conceptualize and assess these efforts.”

They continue, “a big part of the problem is a lack of clarity on what research engagement is for, and what ‘impact agenda’ success would look like.”

We did a deep dive into data from Altmetric, which monitors the reach of research through online interactions. We were pleased to see that, even in light of research policy engagement being a challenge for both researchers and policymakers, in the past year alone, we found hundreds of examples of research being utilized in policy documents.

What follows is a rundown of five Taylor & Francis open access research articles published in the past two years, that directly influenced recent policy documents from some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world.

These include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Bank, and The Publications Office of the European Union.

Identifying critical problems: One study’s impact on a WHO report

In their article “From Research to Health Policy Impact” Carolyn M. Clancy, Sherry A. Glied, and Nicole Lurie describe four key ways that researchers can influence policymaking:

“They can identify critical problems, research the benefits and harms of policy solutions, estimate the costs and consequences of policy proposals, and actively participate in the policy process to aid real-time decision making.”

Identifying critical problems is exactly what this 2022 study “Maternal mortality in the covid-19 pandemic: findings from a rapid systematic review” has contributed to a recent WHO report.

In the paper, authored by Clara Calvert, Jeeva John, Farirai P. Nzvere, Jenny A. Cresswell, Sue Fawcus, Edward Fottrell, Lale Say, and Wendy J. Graham, the authors report the findings of “a rapid systematic review of studies on levels of maternal mortality before and during the COVID-19 pandemic” using data from Mexico, Peru, Uganda, South Africa, Kenya, and India.

The researchers had difficulty finding conclusive evidence, offering that there is a “dearth of studies giving reliable information on levels of maternal mortality,” and calling for “increased and more systematic reporting of this largely preventable outcome.”

Their research findings were cited in WHO’s report, “Protect the promise: 2022 progress report on the every woman every child global strategy for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health (2016–2030).” This aims at “documenting severe setbacks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic” to “restore lost gains for women, children and youth.”

You can read the WHO report here.

Newborn baby girl 3 weeks old, grasping father's finger, closeup

Policy into action: Protecting freedom of the press

The European Parliament’s briefing “Press freedom in the EU” states: “Freedom of expression and information, as well as the freedom of the press, which provides the most powerful platform for the first two, contribute significantly to the formation of public opinion, thus allowing people to make informed choices in their political decisions.

“These freedoms are therefore essential for democracy, which is one of the fundamental values common to all Member States, on which the European Union is founded.”

In its work promoting these values, the EU has created the report “Safety of journalists in non-EU countries: state and non-state protection mechanisms and the role of the EU” which cited a recent open access research paper from Tamsin S. Mitchell.

Mitchell’s paper “Using journalism for self-protection: Profession-specific and journalistic measures and strategies for countering violence and impunity in Mexico and Honduras” uses interviews with 67 journalists in Honduras and Mexico.

Mitchell writes: “In Mexico and Honduras, journalists face violence from state and non-state actors and almost complete impunity for attacks.”

The paper describes the situation that many reporters find themselves in, where they live with the daily threat of violence from the people they may want to report on.

These individuals enact self-protection measures that include avoiding topics altogether with self-censorship, or “accommodation,” which “involves civilians interacting with armed actors, often under duress — for example, by paying for protection, acting as informants, or using connections with government or armed groups to obtain ‘privileges.'”

Through this in-depth analysis from Mitchell, we’re shown a world full of grey areas that journalists must navigate to survive.

The EU paper’s recommendations include: “Carrying out missions to non-EU countries where journalist safety and protection are; and following consultation with local civil society, consider issuing urgency resolutions and/or press releases highlighting restriction and attacks on journalists and media freedom in such countries.”

These recommendations could not have been made without researchers such as Mitchell explaining the plight of journalists in their respective countries.

Using data to break the poverty trap: A financial inclusion case study

One of the goals of the World Bank is to “help countries share and apply innovative knowledge and solutions to the challenges they face.”

In its recent paper “Designing and delivering government-led graduation programs for people in extreme poverty” it cites the open access study “The effect of financial inclusion on multidimensional poverty: the case of Vietnam” as one of its sources of information.

A graduation program differs from what many of us might see as “traditional” aid. Asian Development Bank (ADB) has a great explanation on its site:

“Also called cash plus programming, economic inclusion, or social protection for employment, the graduation approach promotes economic opportunities and social inclusion to give the poor and vulnerable a big push toward sustainable livelihoods and resilience.”

The study from Huong Thi Thanh Tran, Ha Thi Thu Le, Nga Thanh Nguyen, Tue Thi Minh Pham, and Huyen Thanh Hoang found that “households having bank accounts, bank savings, using debit cards, credit cards, or investing in stocks or bonds are less likely to fall into multidimensional poverty.” They advise that “the government’s policies should encourage households to use financial products and services.”

This research directly influenced the conclusions in The World Bank’s paper: “Governments can increase the impact and scale of their initiatives for reducing extreme poverty by establishing and investing in the systems, processes, and capacities needed to identify those individuals and households that are farthest behind and addressing the multidimensional socioeconomic barriers that often exclude them.”

Encouraging households to use financial products is one of the “four pillars” of the “Graduation approach” that the World Bank advocates: “… meeting people’s basic needs, generating income, connecting participants to financing and facilitating savings, and coaching and empowering participants” to “provide a framework for designing, delivering, and monitoring a program to break the poverty trap.”

Multi-criteria decision making techniques: A policy optimization tool

In its report “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022: Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable” the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) paints a dire picture of the current state of world hunger:

“Projections are that nearly 670 million people will still be facing hunger in 2030 – 8% of the world population, which is the same as in 2015 when the 2030 Agenda was launched.” The authors cite COVID-19, climate extremes, and conflict as some of the major reasons global hunger has not improved.

The FAO sees the issue as complex, and requiring a diversity of approaches to solve:

“Given the diversity of each country’s context, repurposing efforts will need strong institutions on a local, national, and global level, as well as engaging and incentivizing stakeholders from the public sector, the private sector, and international organizations.”

In light of this, a recent open access study from the Journal of Applied Economics by Marco V. Sánchez and Martín Cicowiez, specifically on agricultural policy in Ethiopia, was one of the papers they were able to glean some knowledge from in their attempt to attack this problem.

The study “Optimising policies to achieve agricultural transformation objectives: an application for Ethiopia” explains the harsh reality impeding many policy objectives: lack of funds.

Sánchez and Cicowiez write, “Policymakers simultaneously pursue several objectives, some of which are even in conflict, and their budgets are typically too limited to achieve all of them simultaneously, particularly in developing countries and even more so during the current economic recession context in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The economists continue their analysis: “…when seeking to achieve higher economic growth, a policymaker may also be aiming at ensuring that the new economic growth trickles down to the poor.”

“Importantly, some of these objectives may be conflicting. For example, poverty reduction programs may conflict with achieving fiscal consolidation.”

The researchers propose the use of multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, which are techniques “applied to several economic problems in which it is not reasonable or operational to assume the existence of a single goal or objective.”

The FAO paper specifically cites Sánchez and Cicowiez’ policy optimization tool in their section on Optimizing public budgets to align agricultural transformation and health diets’ affordability objectives: Evidence for Ethiopia.

Researchers assess policy impacts

As we noted earlier, researchers not only impact policy, but also analyze how enacted policies either benefit or harm the communities for which they’re designed.

COVID-19 brought about unprecedented global collaboration and innovation; governments and the scientific community responded quickly, enacting policies and providing funding for vaccine research, most notably in a type of vaccine called mRNA.

In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization developed a publication providing observations based on a comprehensive review of the patenting activity that took place in the field of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. WIPO cited the Taylor & Francis 2022 study “The global mRNA vaccine patent landscape,” from the journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics in its publication.

In it, the authors, Mengyao Li, Jianxiong Ren, Xingyong Si, Zhaocai Sun, Pingping Wang, Xiaoming Zhang, Kungmeng Liu, and Benzheng Wei, point out the significance of this new type of vaccine: “In light of their quick development and low risk, mRNA vaccines are gradually replacing traditional vaccines.”

They go on to explain why: “Specifically, vaccines that can be produced at speed and scale, are affordable, and are capable of efficiently dealing with complex and mutating viruses are needed, which resulted in the advent of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. Instead of injecting antigens into the body, this new generation of vaccines utilizes injected mRNA in order to help produce antigens in the body. mRNA vaccines can greatly reduce associated production costs and production cycles, thus steering vaccinology in a new direction.”

Their study did a deep dive into the global mRNA patent landscape to “serve as a reference for governments, academia, and industry stakeholders to make relevant decisions and provides directions for technological development and industry transformation.”

Read the WIPO paper that cites Taylor & Francis research here.

Open access research is impacting policy

It is clear from these five examples that research – in particular, open access research – is indeed impacting policy.

While the exact number of global research papers impacting policy is not yet available, we’re starting to see some data from the U.K.

Our hot-off-the-press white paper “Accelerating Open Access: OA in the U.K.” gives some compelling statistics. We know, for example, that over 500 articles published OA via a Taylor & Francis agreement with Jisc in 2021 and 2022 have been cited in governmental, intergovernmental, and think tank policy documents as of May 2023. The measurement of how research impacts policy needs improvement, so both researchers and policymakers can be convinced of its importance.

In their paper “Are research-policy engagement activities informed by policy theory and evidence? 7 challenges to the UK impact agenda” Anna Hopkins, Kathryn Oliver, Annette Boaz, Shannon Guillot-Wright, and Paul Cairney mapped the activities of 346 organizations investing in research-policy engagement. They provide seven general recommendations for research funders seeking to invest in successful research-policy engagement strategies and researchers involved in shaping and delivering them. You can read their recommendations here.

Researchers have a part to play as well. Research communication involves communicating one’s research in an engaging and understandable way to those outside of academia. And it goes beyond just communicating a final article or results – it’s about managing communication with stakeholders throughout the entire research process.

As a Sense about Science guide recommends: “Involve the public. And involve them early,” if you are a researcher.

Find more tips for increasing your research impact here.

Accelerating open access (OA) in the UK

This report looks at how our transformative agreement with Jisc boosted the impact of U.K. research in 2021 and 2022.

View the story

Accelerating open access (OA) in the UK

How our partnership with Jisc is boosting research impact

Insights > Research impact > Accelerating open access (OA) in the UK

Publishing open access (OA) increases the visibility and impact of research. It encourages innovation and collaboration and boosts public engagement.

Policymakers recognize these benefits and have created a policy landscape that has accelerated a transition to OA, particularly in Europe.

Driving the transition to OA

One of the key drivers of this transition is Transformative Agreements (TAs) between publishers and institutions.

TAs aim to help institutions to transition to an OA future by enabling more researchers to publish OA and increase their research impact.

Boosting the impact of UK research

This report highlights the key findings of the Jisc and Taylor & Francis Transformative Agreement (TA), launched in early 2021.

It examines the impact on the research communities eligible to publish OA under the Agreement. It also looks at how the Agreement boosted global access to U.K. research.

In particular, we highlight the impact on Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) research, and the benefits of TA funding for disciplines that traditionally have less access to funding sources. As the largest HSS publisher in the world, we’re committed to finding a sustainable route to OA for HSS research communities.

Aims of the Agreement

Jisc and Taylor & Francis signed the Agreement in April 2021 with the following aims:

Significantly increasing the volume of OA articles from U.K. authors
Developing a sustainable OA publishing model for increasing the long-term impact of research across all subject areas – especially in humanities and social sciences (HSS), where there has traditionally been a shortfall of OA funding
Reducing cost and administration barriers to OA publishing by improving article submission workflows and removing the need for authors and funders to pay article processing charges (APCs) when they publish OA

The Agreement supports compliance with U.K. funder policies.

Key findings and stats

Man silhouette near old meteorological device with head light is looking at the mountains at night sky with star trails

A child in a school classroom in Lima, Peru

Ripe wheat in August growing in the U.K.

432%

The increase in OA articles by authors at institutions supported by the Agreement between 2020 and 2022

16.2 million

The number of global downloads of the Agreement’s OA articles in 2021 and 2022, which fueled an 83% increase in downloads of all Taylor & Francis U.K. articles

10,000+

The number of Taylor & Francis articles published OA in 2021 and 2022 via the Agreement

499

The number of articles published via the Agreement in 2021 and 2022 cited in governmental, intergovernmental, and think tank policy documents by May 2023

7,900+

The number of humanities and social sciences (HSS) articles published OA in 2021 and 2022 via the Agreement

2,100+
The number of Taylor & Francis journals that accept OA articles via the Agreement

130+
The number of U.K. institutions supported by the Agreement

600+
The number of global institutions we support via more than 25 similar TAs

83%
The year-on-year increase in downloads to Taylor & Francis journal content published by U.K. researchers in 2021

21,000+
The number of OA articles published in Taylor & Francis journals via TAs in 2021 and 2022

25+
The number of Taylor & Francis journals converting to full OA in 2023

Impact on Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) research in the UK

Humanities and social sciences (HSS) research helps solve the world’s most pressing issues.

This was demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when publishers made related research free to access in many disciplines.

There are important cultural issues, behaviors around vaccines, people’s freedoms, how people live their lives, socio-economic challenges… More than ever, people recognize the importance of social science…

Claire Graves, COO, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Removing barriers and accelerating OA in HSS

HSS research typically receives less research funding than science, technical, and medical (STM) subject areas.

This makes it more difficult for researchers to publish their OA research.

With more than 1,400 HSS journals that are “hybrid” (offering a mix of OA and subscription articles), we offer many routes to OA for researchers in HSS disciplines.

Through the Agreement, researchers published more than 7,900 HSS articles in 2021 and 2022. This was 80% of all articles published via the Agreement, and more than six times the number published by researchers at institutions supported by the Agreement in 2019 and 2020.

Figure 1: OA articles published in Taylor & Francis hybrid HSS journals by U.K authors at institutions supported by the Agreement – 2019–2022

Figure 1: OA articles published in Taylor & Francis hybrid HSS journals by U.K authors at institutions supported by the Agreement – 2019–2022

As the editor of a Taylor and Francis journal, I have been deeply impressed by Taylor and Francis’s careful adoption of open access for some of the essays published in the journal.

Two of our most-read articles – Priyamvada Gopal’s “On Decolonisation and the University,” and Huw Marsh’s essay on Ian McEwan’s Atonement – have been published as open access. This has allowed this work to reach a much wider readership – both essays have been downloaded in excess of 30,000 times.

Professor Peter Boxall, Editor-in-Chief of Textual Practice

Black student studying in a traditional university library.

Top HSS subject area

At the end of 2022, the top HSS subject area by number of OA articles published was history, with more than 250 articles published OA via the Agreement.

The proportion of history articles published OA in Taylor & Francis journals by authors at institutions supported by the agreement increased from 10% in 2020 to 74% in 2022.

Figure 2: % of history articles published OA in Taylor & Francis journals by authors at institutions supported by the agreement – 2020 and 2022

Figure 2: % of history articles published OA in Taylor & Francis journals by authors at institutions supported by the agreement – 2020 and 2022

I am delighted to see U.K. scholars in the arts, humanities, and social sciences realizing the full benefits of publishing open access via our arrangement with Jisc. We have seen articles gain considerably more impact by being published OA in subject areas that would not have traditionally had any funding, such as literature, history, and politics.

Jessica Vivian, HSS Publishing Director, Taylor & Francis

Growing HSS subject areas

The Agreement also accelerated OA in specialist areas where there were no Taylor & Francis OA articles in 2020 from authors at institutions now supported by the Agreement:

	% OA articles published by authors supported by the Agreement in 2021	% OA articles published by authors supported by the Agreement in 2022
Marketing and advertising	58	70
Teacher education	52	81
Physical education	72	69
Middle East studies	55	74
Sexual diversity studies	76	77

I didn’t know I could publish open access without paying a fee – but I was absolutely delighted when I found out that [my university] had an arrangement that meant that I could…

My key aim is always to get my research ‘out’ to the communities I work with – both the participant groups I work with, and the research community…

Disability & Society journal author

Person showing symptoms of fatigue in park on sunny day

Spotlight on: “The Impact of long COVID on the UK workforce,” by Darja Reuschke and Donald Houston in Applied Economics Letters

This article was published OA by the University of Southampton through the Agreement in July 2022.

The article is in the top 5% of all research outputs, as defined by Altmetric, which measures the impact and reach of research papers by monitoring discussions around pieces of published research from a range of media, including social media, press, blogs, and policy documents.

Impact

The article has been cited by at least one policy document published jointly by the think tank Demos and The Physiological Society.

It also has a diverse audience on social media. By the end of 2022, over 3,600 Twitter users had shared this article in countries including the U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Of these users, 90% were members of the public, compared to 5% scientists, 3% practitioners (doctors and other healthcare professionals), and 2% science communicators (such as journalists, bloggers, and editors).

This illustrates how OA enables public access to critical research, which is vital in a global emergency like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Impact on STEM research in the UK

Research in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) also benefited from the Agreement.

Growth of OA articles in STEM

In 2021 and 2022, more than 2,100 articles were published OA via the Agreement in life, earth and environmental sciences, physical sciences and engineering, and medicine and health disciplines.

There was a significant rise in OA articles from U.K. authors in the civil, structural, and geotechnical engineering disciplines. In 2022, 80% of articles in this area were OA compared to just 5% in 2020.

Figure 3: OA articles published in Taylor & Francis hybrid medical and science and technology journals by U.K. authors (2019–2022)

Figure 3: OA articles published in Taylor & Francis hybrid medical and science and technology journals by U.K. authors (2019–2022)

Citation growth in STEM

Citations from OA articles in STEM subjects by U.K. authors grew significantly.

Engineering disciplines that saw a significant increase in citations between 2020 and 2022, according to Digital Science’s Dimensions platform include:

Control and systems engineering (2,800% increase)
Transport engineering (533% increase)
Mechanical engineering (382% increase)

Medical disciplines that saw significant growth in citations include:

Audiology (225% increase)
Substance abuse (600% increase)
Hematology (180% increase)

Full-OA journal growth

The Agreement led to significant growth of OA research in our STEM journals.

This growth, along with the collective impact of other TAs, has supported several STEM journals converting from hybrid to full OA. This is because the growth of OA articles in journals is a metric we use when we decide which journals to convert to full OA.

Journals that converted in 2022 include Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics and RNA Biology. Journals converting to full OA in 2023 include Annals of Human Biology and Platelets. These join more than 100 hybrid Taylor & Francis journals across all subject areas that have already converted to full OA.

To make sure a journal is sustainable under a full OA model, other factors we consider before conversion include locations of the authorship, subject area, and availability of funding.

Global reach and readership

A key benefit of OA publishing is that it’s easier for anyone to access.

This can lead to a greater and more diverse reach, growing the long-term impact of research in a sustainable way.

Article downloads

By the end of 2022, articles published OA via the Agreement had been downloaded 16.2 million times globally.

This included 3.5 million downloads from the U.S.

And 3.5 million downloads from the U.K.

There were also a significant number of downloads from China (800,000), Germany (650,000), India (630,000), Australia (570,000), and Canada (460,000).

Overall, there were downloads from most countries across the world.

All regions saw growth in readership in 2022 compared to 2020, with Central America seeing the biggest growth (365%) followed by Asia (220%), North America (197%), Africa (186%), and the Caribbean (149%).

Figure 4: Growth in downloads within the year of acceptance to articles by researchers at the institutions supported by the Agreement – 2022 vs. 2020

Figure 4: Growth in downloads within the year of acceptance to articles by researchers at the institutions supported by the Agreement – 2022 vs. 2020

For U.K. OA articles accepted in 2022, downloads within 12 months more than doubled compared to 2020.

These grew from 2.4 million to 5.4 million, with a greater proportion of downloads from outside the U.K. – 80% compared to 70% in 2020.

Influence on other research

The number of citations in other research is an important indicator of the relevance of scholarly work to the research community.

By the end of 2022, 9,423 articles published OA via the Agreement had been indexed by Web of Science and had received 11,827 citations – an average of 1.26 per article.

This rises to 2.18 citations for articles published in 2021, demonstrating how citations tend to grow over an article’s lifetime.

By comparison, non-OA articles published in Taylor & Francis journals in 2021 by researchers at the institutions supported by the Agreement had been cited just 1.33 times on average.

Figure 5: Average citations of articles published in 2021

Figure 5: Average citations of articles published in 2021

We expect this gap to grow over time as more people discover and access the research.

Citation growth over time

Citation growth over time allows us to measure the effect OA can have at a subject level.

The subject areas that experienced the most growth in citations of Taylor & Francis journal articles between 2020 and 2022, according to the Dimensions platform, are as follows:

Subject area	Growth in citations (2020–2022)
Palaeobiology	1,975%
Control and systems engineering	1,963%
Transport engineering	1,900%
Mental health	1,437%
Substance abuse	1,354%

Wave cut platform on an Isle of Wight beach

Spotlight on: “A new hadrosauriform dinosaur from the Wessex Formation, Wealden Group (Early Cretaceous), of the Isle of Wight, southern England,” by Jeremy A. F. Lockwood et al. in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology

This article was published OA by the University of Portsmouth through the Agreement in November 2021.

Impact

The article was part of a successful media campaign. This resulted in 204 news stories via 175 news outlets, and mentions on Twitter from users in more than 20 countries.

In the 12 months following publication, it received three citations in other research articles, according to the Dimensions platform. This grew to eight citations by April 2023. We expect this to receive many more citations in the future due to the increased visibility and accessibility through OA.

Impact beyond academia

Policy citations

Research published OA via the Agreement is already influencing policy and discourse in many areas, according to the Overton database.

By May 2023, 499 articles published OA via the Agreement in 2021 and 2022 had been cited in policy documents in publications by:

Governments (e.g. the U.K. Government, Deutscher Bundestag, New Zealand Ministry of Health, U.S. House of Representatives Committees)
Intergovernmental organizations (e.g. the U.N., WHO, World Bank, OECD)
Think tanks and repositories (e.g. the Institute of Development Studies in the U.K., the Walter Eucken Institut in Germany, the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, the Analysis & Policy Observatory in Australia)

Most-cited subject areas

Many policy citations were in HSS subject areas, including the following:

Subject area	Citations by end of 2022
Sociology and political science	90
International relations	67
Geography, planning, and development	57
Educational research	55
Environmental sciences	36
Development	35
Law	32
Economics	30
Cultural studies	28
Strategy and management	12
Anthropology	11

Top five most-cited journals

Journal	Citations by end of 2022
Climate Policy	94
Regional Studies	52
European Societies	49
Environmental Politics	27
Critical Policy Studies	26

Policy citations are a less dynamic metric than, for example, article downloads, so we expect further growth over time.

Alignment with U.N. SDGs

The U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are interconnected policy objectives intended to achieve a sustainable future for the world. OA research related to the SDGs makes an important contribution to solving the most urgent global issues.

1,161 articles (16%) published OA via the Agreement in 2021 and 2022 are aligned with at least one SDG.

The top three SDGs that benefited from the Agreement’s OA articles in 2021 are:

SDG	Number of OA articles
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (goal 16)	544
Quality Education (goal 4)	307
Good Health and Well-Being (goal 3)	162

As well as this, 104 articles in 2021 and 2022 align with multiple SDGs, particularly Decent Work and Economic Growth (goal 8), Affordable and Clean Energy (goal 7), Climate Action (goal 13), and Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (goal 16).

Media coverage

Media coverage is an important way to raise awareness about research, and engage with the public and policymakers. Publishing research OA makes it easier for media professionals and the public to access and distribute.

The 10,108 articles published OA via the Agreement in 2021 and 2022 have a high level of engagement from news sources in particular (source: Altmetric).

For example, by the end of 2022, the articles had been mentioned in approximately 4,170 news stories by about 1,140 outlets in 70 countries.

The most common outlet was The Conversation, with 197 mentions through its syndicate of global news websites, which can be freely reposted under a Creative Commons license to help drive mass readership.

Other outlets to regularly mention articles published via the Agreement were:

Yahoo! News (188 mentions)
Foreign Affairs New Zealand (119 mentions)
MSN (103 mentions)

Other notable coverage came from BBC News, The Guardian, National Geographic, CNN, Times Higher Education, and New Scientist.

Growth year-on-year

The number of mentions of U.K. Taylor & Francis research in news and blogs between 2020 and 2021 rose from 1,924 to more than 2,300.

This was driven by articles published OA via the Agreement on topics such as:

Spotlight on: “Practical, professional or patriarchal? An investigation into the socio-cultural impacts of gendered school sports uniform and the role uniform plays in shaping female experiences of school sport,” by Tess Howard in Sport, Education, and Society

This article was published OA by Durham University through the Agreement on 6 April 2023.

Great Britain and England hockey player Tess Howard carried out the research.

Impact

By 26 April, less than three weeks after publication, the article had already been mentioned in 17 news stories, in outlets including The Guardian, The Telegraph, and BBC News in the U.K., and MDR in Germany.

Although it’s too early to measure citations in research and policy documents, the research has already led to new inclusive kit regulations in domestic hockey.

Further reflection

This report highlights how we can assess the outcome and impact of a specific TA in the U.K.

There are numerous factors that determine the overall performance of TAs. These all require investment in resources, system development, and the evolution of skills and capabilities for publishers and institutions.

As well as disseminating valuable U.K. research and raising its impact through our partnership with Jisc, we’re also aiming to share the knowledge we’ve gained from this joint OA journey.

Underrepresented

Making African research more visible

1. Quantifying international public finance for climate change adaptation in Africa

2. Measuring the accuracy of infrared thermometers in health settings

3. Effects of groundwater overpumping in Egypt

4. The political economy of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation

5. Women’s capacities for agricultural innovation in Kenya and Nigeria

6. Reviewing bacterial resistance to antibiotics

7. Implementing inclusive education in South Africa

8. Using geothermal heat pump systems to cool buildings in hot climates

9. Measuring Maternal Near Miss (MNM) in a middle-income country

10. Mobile phones, gender, and female empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa

You might also like:

Image captions

The body (of evidence) politic

Image captions

A toxic testament to human activity

Image captions

Aye, robot

Image captions

Contesting the narrative

Image captions

Using behavioral and cultural insights to solve health crises

Image captions

Celebrating 10 years of open access books

Image captions

You might also like:

Insights and blogs

Social justice and sustainability

Impact and influence

10 years of OA books

Image captions

Edited by Henrik Skaug Sætra

Edited by Rupak Chattopadhyay, Felix Knüpling, Diana Chebenova, Liam Whittington, and Phillip Gonzalez

Edited by Malcolm Campbell-Verduyn

By Amitoj Singh

By Larry E. Erickson and Gary Brase

Edited by Jude Boyles, Robin Ewart-Biggs, Rebecca Horn, and Kirsten Lamb

Edited by Timothy Kellison

Edited by Rainer Greifeneder, Mariela Jaffe, Eryn Newman, and Norbert Schwarz

Edited by Pauline Kollontai and Friedrich Lohmann

Edited by Nils Ringe and Lucio Rennó

Edited by Nick Banatvala and Pascal Bovet

By John Mattick and Paulo Amaral

Resources and related links

Image captions

Improving the global diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy

Image captions

Carbon dis-credit: How credible is the carbon market?

Image captions

Being smart about intelligent agriculture

Image captions

Global collaboration is key to disaster response and reduction

Image captions

Fixing the bugs when it comes to gene editing insects

Image captions

Evidence-based research impacting policy

Image captions

You might also like:

Insights and blogs

Social justice and sustainability

Image captions

Identifying critical problems: One study’s impact on a WHO report

Image captions

Policy into action: Protecting freedom of the press

Image captions

Using data to break the poverty trap: A financial inclusion case study

Image captions

Multi-criteria decision making techniques: A policy optimization tool

Image captions

Researchers assess policy impacts

Image captions

Open access research is impacting policy

Image captions

You might also like:

Insights and blogs

Social justice and sustainability

Driving the transition to OA

Boosting the impact of UK research

Aims of the Agreement