The Open Research movement started more than two decades ago as a reaction to expensive journal subscriptions – the cost of which was rising exponentially at a time when the economy was shrinking.

What started as a focus on open access to journals has evolved to a much bigger ambition – to make all forms of scholarly knowledge such as raw data, methods and software code openly accessible.

Research and research-led innovation make a substantial contribution to the UK economy. The outputs produced by researchers here in the UK form a major part of our ‘intellectual heritage’ and contribute to science and scholarship globally.

As valuable assets – in both monetary and non-monetary terms – who are the custodians of these outputs and what are their responsibilities in ensuring they remain accessible in the long-term?

A key challenge for long-term accessibility is digital preservation. While large commercial publishers have the resources to outsource this responsibility to specialised preservation organisations, smaller scholar-led publishers, university presses and institutional repositories often lack the necessary funding or infrastructure.

Professor Fry’s inaugural lecture will discuss the risk to the UK’s ‘intellectual heritage’ in the context of digital preservation challenges and the research being done to create sustainable solutions.