According to the world’s most influential open access policies, only certain types of information outputs are genuinely open. In practice, however, there are actually many types of open access outcomes and solutions. A more flexible, evidence-based approach to creating open access policy will better meet researchers’ requirements and also reduce the unintended consequences of our current policies. This sixth OSI policy perspective is, in a sense, the culmination of our five previous OSI reports, bringing together their observations and recommendations. In this document, we will reiterate that APCs are harmful and that ideologically-based policies limit the potential of open (OSI Policy Perspective 1); that common ground is abundant and should be our primary policy focus (Policy Perspective 2); that open science policies are an obvious vector for change, but these policies must be grounded in evidence and make sense to researchers (Policy Perspective 3); and that developing broad, flexible, long-term, goal-oriented strategies is essential (Policy Perspectives 4 and 5). In building our case, we will also summarize the key recommendations of OSI participants since 2015 and note how the results of our global surveys of researchers in 2022 support these recommendations.
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