Operationalising OBC as a sustainable community led initiative

The Open Book Collective (OBC) aims to transform open access book publishing through a community-led, financially sustainable model. Research Consulting worked with OBC to assess its business model, stakeholder feedback, and roadmap to sustainability.

Core aspects of OBC’s work are currently supported by grant funding, via Arcadia and the Research England Development Fund, as part of Copim’s Open Book Futures project. This project funding runs until the end of April 2026, so a key focus has been on ensuring the foundations are in place to enable the OBC sustain itself into the longer term.

To address this challenge, the review produced a model mapping different financial scenarios and options for OBC. Research Consulting also collaborated with OBC to gather feedback on their offer from library, publisher, and infrastructure provider stakeholders via 17 in-depth interviews. This provided new insights into the needs and views of the community, including strong appreciation for OBC’s simplified procurement workflows and quality assurance role.

This review confirmed that the OBC can sustain itself into the near to medium term without the need for grant funding, if it is possible to continue increasing support for the OBC collective offering. This would put OBC on track for full break-even and sustainability by 2027.