Open access is a start, but do we need to do more to restore justice and maintain equity?

Who owns our knowledge?

In academia, the open access movement has often been framed as the answer to making research more inclusive and equitable. By removing paywalls, it offers the promise of greater accessibility to knowledge. But while open access is a crucial first step, it is not enough. If we are serious about justice and equity in knowledge production, we must also radically rethink how that knowledge is produced, who is involved in producing it, and whom it truly serves.

Take mainstream psychology, for example. Much of the discipline has long relied on quantitative research drawn from a narrow demographic—primarily white, Western, university-educated participants. These findings are then generalised to the rest of the world, often with little regard for the cultural, historical, or contextual differences that shape human experience. This tendency not only excludes the perspectives of the global majority but also promotes a false universality of psychological theories—what scholars have termed a form of epistemic violence (Readsura Decolonial Editorial Collective, 2022).

The issue is deeper than exclusion; psychology has a long and troubling history of racist practices. From its roots in measuring brain architecture and personality traits to its modern manifestations of "zero-point epistemology", the field has too often centred white normativity. As Malherbe et al. (2021) argue, by stripping racism from its historical and structural context, psychology risks reducing domination and subordination to questions of numerical majority, rather than systemic inequality.

Who can access our knowledge?

Moreover, the knowledge produced in academic settings is frequently inaccessible to the very communities it claims to study. Sometimes this inaccessibility is literal—locked behind academic paywalls. But more often, it takes linguistic and epistemic forms: written in a language unfamiliar to the community or shaped by frameworks and assumptions alien to their lived experiences (Reddy & Amer, 2023).

Open access, then, must be understood as more than the removal of financial barriers. It must also challenge the hierarchies embedded in knowledge production itself. True accessibility involves engaging communities as co-producers of knowledge, rather than passive subjects of research. It requires methodologies that honour the dignity of participants and recognise the legitimacy of their ways of knowing (Teo, 2021).

One example of this approach is the EXCAPE URMI project for which I am Principal Investigator, where a collective of 47 Malaysian Indian women partnered with academics to co-produce research on precarity in their lives. These women shaped the research questions, contributed to the choice of methods, and participated in analysing the data. They were treated not merely as participants, but as experts of their own lived realities. The project will culminate in a digital exhibition, designed to be linguistically and materially accessible, ensuring that the findings are shared with the communities who co-created them.

Projects like EXCAPE URMI are not alone, but they are still too rare. Their collaborative, justice-oriented approach demands time, care, and a deliberate slowing down of the often-frantic pace of academic life. Such methods are undervalued in a research culture that prioritises speed and output over meaningful engagement.

Making open access an action rather than a theory

Encouragingly, we are seeing a shift. Funders like the British Academy are beginning to support equitable research partnerships and methodologies that prioritise co-creation. As open access policies continue to evolve, they must take a broader view—one that includes linguistic, epistemic, and material accessibility alongside traditional concerns about cost.

Open access is essential. But it is only the beginning. To truly democratise knowledge, we must interrogate not only how we share research, but also how we produce it, for whom, and with whom. Equity in academia will remain out of reach unless we are willing to fundamentally transform our practices—not just in theory, but in action.