The workings of the scholarly communication system have changed dramatically in recent years, but until now, we have known relatively little about the costs of the scholarly communications system as a whole, or how, and by whom, they are met. The Research Information Network (RIN) has recently published a study of the costs of all the activities involved in producing, publishing, distributing, securing access to and reading the 1.6m peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles that are produced each year. Some of those costs are met in cash by research funders, publishers, libraries and others: but many other costs represent the time spent by researchers themselves at key stages in the process.

This presentation will set out some of the key findings of the study, which provides for the first time a rigorous analysis of all the costs involved in the system, globally and in the UK; and also of how, and by whom, they are being met. It also provides an analysis of the impact of possible changes to the system, including a shift to electronic-only publication; more general adoption of author-side payments to finance open access; cash payments to researchers who undertake peer review; and the implications of continued increases of the volume of articles published each year. The presentation shall also consider some of the key implications of these findings.