Helen HendersonRob JohnsonFor scholarly and scientific publishing, business models are shifting and changing dramatically. Research funding organizations primarily in the UK and US, but elsewhere in Europe and Asia as well, increasingly require unfettered access for the public to the research they have funded in academic laboratories. Failure to comply with such mandates puts future funding at risk. Yet without a flexible and friction-free infrastructure to collect article processing charges – so-called APCs – and deliver detailed reporting on those, authors and publishers face significant challenges.

For almost a decade, Copyright Clearance Center has assisted publishers in collecting author charges. Over the last two years, it became clear that an open dialogue among publishers, institutions, and their vendors is essential to creating an efficient ecosystem for Open Access publishing. In London at University College last October, Copyright Clearance Center brought together publishers and institutions for a roundtable discussion to share experiences and conceptualize possible solutions.

Recently, Copyright Clearance Center issued that group’s finding in a report by Rob Johnson, the founder and director of Research Consulting. In a webinar last week with a global audience, Johnson joined Helen Henderson, co-founder, Information Power for a review of the highlights and a look to the future.

An experienced research management professional and Chartered Accountant, Rob Johnson founded Research Consulting in early 2013. For the University of Nottingham, he served as Research Financial Controller, and subsequently Head of Research Operations.

Helen Henderson has enjoyed a varied professional life, starting as a geologist and then working mainly in the commercial sector as a librarian, software developer, publisher and subscription agent. She was the founder of Ringgold which now provides an authoritative database of institutional subscribers to publishers worldwide. Her company Information Power developed a database of customer information for publishers that now forms the basis for potential standards. She works on several standards committees, including the National Information Standards Organization’s Institutional Identifiers Working Group.

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