Conflicts

Last revised August 24, 2016.

This is a non-public draft. I'll make it public as soon as I'm happy with it.

• I sometimes serve on advisory boards of organizations whose work I do not entirely endorse. I do so when I'm willing to advise them, when they're willing to hear my advice, when I think they have some good ideas, and when I have time. If the willingness to advise implied an endorsement, I would not accept many of these positions.
  • When I serve on an advisory board, I do not raise money for the organization, though I will sometimes support its application for a grant.

• I consult pro bono on open access. Because I'm not paid for this, I see no conflict of interest. Sometimes this pro bono consulting results in policies or practices I do not entirely endorse. At least I tried.

• I sometimes consult for pay. I never charge non-profits to consult. With for-profits, sometimes I charge and sometimes I do not. I started working as a paid consultant 15 years ago or more, after I gave up my salary as a philosophy professor to work full-time on open access. But when I got more requests than I had time to fulfill, I raised my price until the requests fell to a manageable level. Today I only take about 1-2 of of these jobs a year. Each is usually a one-hour phone call. For the past few years, these consultations have always been with investors who want to know whether the stock prices of major, publicly-traded for-profit academic publishers are going up or down. I never express an opinion on those future stock prices, and they never ask me. I limit myself to talking about what's happening with OA and academic publishing, and let the investors draw their own conclusions.

• I used to do a lot of public speaking. Today, for medical reasons, I do much less of it. Sometimes I take honorariums and sometimes I waive them. But even when I take them, I'm never paid to espouse any position but my own.

• I have a salary from Harvard University. This is a potential conflict. When I defend Harvard's policies or practices on OA, I always give my arguments. However, you should decide for yourself whether my advocacy is compromised by my salary.
  • As I see it, the existence of a potential conflict like this one is not a reason to curb my advocacy, stop speaking my mind, or stop recommending what I honestly believe is worth recommending. It's merely a reason for disclosure, so that readers can decide for themselves how to weigh my arguments.

• I don't directly raise money for Harvard. But I once spoke at a meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association, and one fairly evident purpose was to keep alumni happy and willing to give. When I do my job well, it might have a similar effect of helping Harvard raise money. I have talked directly to a few donors interested in giving to my unit within Harvard. But I limit myself to describing what we do, and why I think it's important. I never make the ask.

• In the past I've had salaries or stipends for my OA work from Yale Law School, the Harvard Law School Library, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. I no longer have any of these salaries or stipends from the first two. But I have a new and ongoing arrangement with Berkman. (See below.)

• I have a grant from the Arnold Foundation, starting in September 2016. In the past I've had grants for my OA work from the Open Society Institute (today, the Open Society Foundations), the Wellcome Trust, and the Arcadia Fund. I've had a grant for my work in philosophy from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

• Since funders prefer to give grants to a non-profit organizations, rather than individuals, I formerly made arrangements with non-profits to receive these grants on my behalf. I had these arrangements with Public Knowledge, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. I currently have this kind of arrangement with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

• When I published my newsletter on OA, I had a subsidy from SPARC, and occasional ads from Data Conversion Laboratory.

• Bottom line: Although I support OA, and work full-time on it, I don't directly receive money from its success. For example, I own no stock in any OA publisher or service provider. I benefit indirectly because the success of OA, and the success my own contributions to it, increase the chances that I'll get grants to work on it, and increase the chances that there will be paying jobs (like my current job at Harvard) to work on it. However, even in these cases of indirect benefit, neither my grants nor my salary are tied to the progress of OA.
  • I don't have a salary or grant or any other kind of financial support for my OA work from any for-profit organization. (I own some stocks.)