The UK public sector spends £135 million a year, made up of subscriptions and time spent trying to find articles, accessing the journal papers it needs to perform effectively. Each extra 5% of journal papers accessed via open access on the web would save the public purse £1.7 million, even if no subscription fees were to be saved. 

The UK’s valuable voluntary and charitable sector would also benefit from open access to academic research. For survey respondents, the two most frequently mentioned barriers to accessing research were cost (80%) and lack of time (46%).