Availability of Open Access journals by scientific fields, specialization and Open Access regulations in the YERUN universities

Abstract The availability of Open Access journals in the various fields of knowledge in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science is hypothesized to present strong inequalities, thus affecting the choice of journals by researchers wishing to publish their research results in Open Access. The first objective of this research was to contrast this hypothesis, by crossing the list of journals available at WoS with the lists of the Directory of Open Access Journals. The availability of OA journals presents strong inequalities, ranging from 5 to 40% depending on the field of knowledge. At the level of universities, such disparity in the availability of Open Access journals is an important factor regarding their accomplishment of Open Access mandates considering their specialization profiles. In this work, as the second objective, the publications available on the Web of Science (from 2016 to 2020) of the universities belonging to the YERUN Network (Young European Research Universities) are studied in order to identify their specialization profiles, their Open Access types (and evolution) and the possible interactions between their specialization and the availability of Open Access journals and their respective fields of specialization. A general overview of the volumes of funded research and the different proportions of Open Access and non-Open Access in funded and non-funded research is also provided. The indicator “Open Access Likelihood” is introduced and applied as a proxy for the likelihood of Open Access publications taking into account the fields of specialization of the YERUN universities. The results of its application underline the need to take into consideration both, specialization and Open Access availability when designing feasible Open Access mandates. Future research includes the study of the availability of Open Access journals by tiers of impact actors.