From: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 10:16:18 +0100

The trouble with funders paying publishers directly is that (i) it
plays into the hands of big publishing which has the bodies who can
attend the innumerable meetings with the civil servants to sort out
the deal (ii) its a step towards explicit state funded publishing,
with all the gentle pressure that entails - try publishing the journal
that gives a platform to those, say, sceptical of the claims about
manmade global warming, or any other modish orthodoxy, under a state
funding model, and see how far you get; (iii) it raises risk to
unacceptable levels: what buiness can afford to lose overnight 10, 20,
30% of its funding, and survive; (iv) big, clever, well-resourced
publishing will game the new funding system Ms Gardner envisages(just
as they are gaming APCs), will run away with even more profits than
they already do and in doing so will further squeeze diversity out of
the market creating yet more of a quasi monopoly which they can better
exploit.

Having a few thousand customers around the world separately paying me
for content strikes me, from  publisher perspective, as a more secure
and practical way forward than trying to deal separately with a few
Ministries of Education or their sub-agencies. A better way forward
would be for the Ministries to devolve more decision-making to the
library and user level, along with the money, rather than putting it
in the hands of 'funders' who are really pretty pointless middlemen
(but quite expensive for the taxpayer).

Bill Hughes
Multi-Science Publishing