This study was commissioned in response to a recommendation of the Finch Group in its second report in 2013 that reliable indicators should be gathered on key features of the transition to open access (OA) in the UK. The findings presented here are thus a first at tempt at generating such indicators covering five sets of issues:

OA options available to authors: the numbers of fully-OA and hybrid journals, along with issues such as the level of article processing charges (APCs), the availability of CC-BY and other licences, and the length of embargo periods

Accessibility: authors’ take-up of OA options: the numbers - and the proportions of the overall population – of articles accessible on OA terms via different routes

Usage : the levels of usage of OA articles as compared to those that are not accessible on OA terms

Financial sustainability for universities: the amounts paid by UK universities in subscriptions and in APCs; and

Financial sustainability for learned societies: the overall income and expenditure – as well as the volumes of journal-related income and expenditure – of UK learned societies which have some publishing income.

There are of course other issues highly relevant to the monitoring of progress towards OA, including s uch matters as the quality of services provided by publ ishers to authors and readers; and we hope that the se will be addressed in subsequent studies