I am in Kampala at a workshop hosted by the National Book Trust of Uganda on alternative publishing models, PALM Africa. The air is full of new ideas, emerging business models…change.
There is considerable promise that local publishers will be able to find new sources of sustainability and increase access to knowledge. These are important benefits of open access publishing models. There is another, often overlooked benefit of open access publishing models.
I was having a conversation with Gary Rosenberg, who runs the Humans Sciences Research Council Press, which has very successfully increased sales and citations by allowing free download of the scholarly and social research work which the HSRC Press publishes. Gary’s insight is the value of getting good ideas quicker.
Perspicacious, timely analysis of complex social and economic issues is essential to decision makers, who dispose of large annual budgets. Although there is considerable focus on the projected eturn on investment, whether monetary or social return by decision makers both business and political, there is little focus on assumption on which the decisions are based. The range of possible solutions which decision makers are aware of, is an absolute constraint on effectiveness. If information or potential solutions are not within the awareness of descision makers there is a risk that not only will the decisions which are made fail to be effective, but path dependence following the decision may make it difficult to acknowledge other possibilities.
As the complexity of social and economic systems increases, the sophistication of models necessary for effective decision making increases. Good ideas, or at least some good ideas, take time to develop, and in current conditions, time to reach descision makers. In the meantime in this complex world, the situation changes, often in unexpected ways. There are obvious benefits to getting good ideas faster. This requires investment not only in the sources of these ideas, such as research programmes, research chairs at universities and think tanks, but to the systems through which the ideas are communicated. While both governments and corporations are willing to make some investment in the generation of new ideas, in Africa this investment is far too small. There is even less investment into communication of new ideas, even though such investments are trivial compared to most investments; commercial or social.
Communication, as my colleague Eve Gray insists, requires more than a technology of delivery, whether hard copy, on-line repository or mass emailing. Communication requires that research findings be translated for different audiences, decision makers are time pressured, and require summaries and clear recommendations, academics are more concerned with methodologies and sources. This requires skills which many publishers are able to deploy. However research budgets don’t often extend to thorough dissemination. Sometimes the energy of researchers doesn’t extend to communication either.
Investments with a systematic effect, which improve idea communication systems, will have greater impact than ad hoc budget line items in individual research programmes.
The idea is to realise the value of good ideas faster.