In 2013 I published my first article in a full open access journal. It was about a set of customized bacterial strains for mechanistic studies of flavoproteins, and it was important for me that the method and resources described there were readily available to the community.

At the time, I was working at a Dutch academic institution, and I didn’t have to worry too much about having access to publications. Except for the odd journal article, conference proceeding, or buried treasure in a rare book, our library’s subscriptions usually gave us access to what we needed. University consortiums and library partnerships usually took care of the rest.

But I knew this level of access wasn’t available to everyone — researchers in countries and institutions with lower levels of research funding were often blocked by paywalls. Publishing in an open access journal seemed like the least I could do to try and level the field.

I remember the discussions we had internally about it. Publishing costs weren’t really a deciding factor as we (unlike many researchers) were lucky enough to have them covered through our funding and institution budgets. But we had other concerns: how respected was the journal? How long does it take to get published? What was its impact factor? It took some time to convince all co-authors that the journal was worth a shot for publishing our results.

Now, open access publications have become commonplace in scientific publishing. But there’s still a lot of work to be done, not only to ensure researchers have access to the information they need, but also that they can afford to publish their own work without being limited by high article processing costs or other fees. Achieving equity in scientific publishing will mean that researchers can take control over where and when they decide to publish, irrespective of their funding situation.

To celebrate Open Access Week, I’ve put together a reading list of articles that I enjoyed reading this year that highlight some of the (potential) impact of open access. I found them helpful for putting funding differences into perspective, and gaining a better understanding of where we stand with providing equitable access to research for researchers and practitioners alike.

• If you’re interested in how open access might impact health practitioners, particularly in rural areas and low- and middle-income countries, check out this guest post on the Open Pharma blog: Open access and global health inequity: a clinical perspective – Open Pharma - Innovations in medical publishing
• This great read from Nature can give you an idea of how the costs of publishing a single article compare to the actual funding/compensation of scholars in Africa: What costs half a year's pay for African scholars? Open access
• Waiver systems for APCs do exist for lesser funded countries/institutions but they are often too complex to be effective: Open access 'excludes' developing world scientists
• A nice perspective from an early-career researcher who describes how open access publishing helps him to create more visibility for his work: A researchers' thoughts on Open Access publishing: interview with Mark Ryan - OpenScience
• The open access movement might have slowed down in some fields. This article talks about the influence of structural factors like mandates and institution level agreements on the progress towards a full open access world and more. Peak Open Access? For Some Scholarly Fields, the Growth in Openly Accessible Output Has Stalled in Recent Years

About the author: Tilo Mathes is the Manager of Community Relations at ResearchGate.