Hybrid OA: a way to go?

After publication of the report of the ‘Finch’ committee, publishers suddenly seem to recognize the potential of open access (OA) as a viable business model for scholarly publishing and wish to promote ‘hybrid OA’ as a means to get from A to B. This article explores the potentially disruptive financial effects of hybrid OA, especially for research-intensive universities. Starting from the assumption that OA will lead to higher costs of dissemination for higher education (HE) anyway, the author indicates two possible ways to get round the financials cliffs between toll access and open access. In both cases, it is necessary to construct a financial communication channel between costs of subscriptions and costs of article processing charges (APCs) on the level of the individual university and/or the consortium.