From access to impact: New evidence on the benefits of open access publishing

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The Researcher's Source

By: Christina Emery, Tue Sep 29 2026

Author: Christina Emery

Head of Thought Leadership Programmes

New evidence confirms what many researchers have long suspected: open access (OA) publishing can help research reach wider audiences, gain visibility more quickly, and create opportunities for greater scholarly and societal impact.

For many years, researchers have told us that OA publishing helps them increase the reach of their articles and books, connect with new audiences and create opportunities for collaboration and engagement. We also know from previous studies such as Going for Gold (2021) that there are demonstrable advantages associated with OA publishing.

But as OA has continued to grow and evolve over the last few years, an important question remains: do those advantages still exist in today's publishing landscape?

Our new white paper, , builds on previous research to explore whether the benefits associated with gold OA persist within a more mature and established OA ecosystem. Drawing on the analysis of more than 200,000 articles across 1,800+ hybrid journals published by PÕ¾ÊÓÆµ, the findings suggest that they do. Gold OA is associated with higher visibility, faster dissemination, greater scholarly impact and broader global reach.

While the data provides a valuable evidence base, the findings also reflect what many researchers have been telling us for years. Here, we explore some of the most common benefits authors describe and how they align with the latest evidence.

â€œGold OA is associated with higher visibility, faster dissemination, greater scholarly impact and broader global reach.â€

Making research accessible to more peopleâ€¯

For many researchers, the primary benefit of OA is straightforward: removing barriers between research and readers.

Dr. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson, Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, highlighted the importance of making research available to those who may not otherwise have access:

"OA makes research more accessible to many more people, also people from low-income countries, who do not have the ability to pay for expensive books."

Similar motivations are reflected in the experiences of Manuel LlinÃ¡s, Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Pennsylvania State University in the United States whose research focuses on malaria and other infectious diseases. He noted the importance of making research available to those working in regions where access to scholarly content can be limited:

"Many of the people who work in this area, who do research in it, especially in the field, are in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South and Central America [...] Giving them the ability to access our data is actually quite empowering to them."

These experiences are reflected in the findings of the recent white paper, From Access to Impact, which found that gold OA articles receive almost seven times more downloads than non-OA articles globally. The reach is even greater in many parts of the Global South, with gold OA articles receiving more than eight times as many downloads in low-income countries and more than seven times as many downloads in lower-middle-income countries compared with non-OA articles.

Increasing visibility and faster reach

Researchers often tell us that accessibility leads directly to greater visibility.

When research is easier and faster to discover, it has more opportunities to be shared, discussed and built upon.

For Dr. Bridget Fowler, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Glasgow, UK, the impact was noticeable:

"It has been the article that has been most quickly taken up of all the articles I have published â€“ that is, in a period of publishing since the early 1970s."

This aligns with evidence from From Access to Impact, which found that gold OA articles not only reach more readers, but reach them sooner. On average, gold OA articles received three times more downloads in their first three months after publication than non-OA articles received across an entire year.

Supporting scholarly impact

Visibility is valuable in itself, but many researchers are also interested in how their work contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations.

Authors frequently tell us that OA helps them reach colleagues they might not otherwise connect with, both within and beyond their own disciplines.

Reflecting on the impact of publishing his work on nutrition and public health via the OA route, Professor Teiji Nakamura, President of Kanagawa University of Human Services, Japan, said:

"It has been of great benefit to me to be able to communicate the history, characteristics and significance of 'Japan Nutrition', as well as my arguments, to a large number of people around the world."

The latest evidence suggests that this increased visibility translates into greater academic engagement. According to From Access to Impact, gold OA articles receive 50% more citations on average than both green OA and non-OA articles.

While citations are only one measure of impact, they provide an indication of how widely research is being discovered, discussed and used by other scholars.

Creating opportunities for collaboration and engagement

â€œThe findings suggest that gold OA can help research travel beyond its immediate academic community, generating greater online attention and engagement among broader audiences.â€

Researchers we've spoken to have also described a range of broader benefits from publishing OA, including:

Invitations to collaborate Increased media attention Greater uptake in teaching Opportunities to engage with practitioners, policymakers and wider public audiences.

The ability to reach audiences beyond a narrow disciplinary community can be particularly important for interdisciplinary research.

As IstvÃ¡n Zachar, evolutionary biologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Evolutionâ€™s Centre for Ecological Research, Hungary, explained:

"I fully endorse and support OA, as a principle, which certainly helped me to access all the relevant publications of the various connected fields."

Similar benefits were reported by Professor Rajeev Varshney, Director of the Centre for Crop & Food Innovation at Murdoch University, Australia, whose research focuses on food security across Africa and Asia:

"Our goal was to share our research findings, learnings, and best practices with interested stakeholders across the world, and this is where exactly publishing these books OA has helped with."

OA has also helped researchers create new connections and opportunities beyond traditional academic channels. As Gabriela-Alina Sauciuc, researcher in Cognitive Science at Lund University, Sweden, and colleagues reported following publication of their research:

"We noticed a considerable impact in the media. The team also received a number of requests for collaboration, especially from graduate students."

These experiences are reflected in From Access to Impact, which found that gold OA articles achieve more than five times the average Altmetric Attention Score of non-OA articles. The findings suggest that gold OA can help research travel beyond its immediate academic community, generating greater online attention and engagement among broader audiences.

A growing evidence base

The experiences shared by authors over the years point to a consistent set of benefits: greater accessibility, wider visibility, stronger scholarly engagement and new opportunities for collaboration. Recent evidence, including findings from From Access to Impact, adds further support to those experiences, showing that the advantages associated with gold OA continue to be observed at scale.

While every research project has different goals, many researchers share a common ambition: ensuring their work reaches the people who can learn from it, build on it and apply it. As the OA landscape continues to evolve, understanding how access shapes impact will remain an important part of publishing decision-making.

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