Risk Area: Financial
Financial constraints and monetisation risks
Financial challenges heavily influence institutions' decisions to adopt open access policies and practices. Concerns about potential revenue loss, particularly for those relying on licensing and sales, are frequently cited. Additionally, the costs associated with implementing and sustaining open access collections further restrict the capacity of some institutions to make their materials publicly and freely accessible.
“We prefer to maintain copyright on the images of our collections as use of images is one of our few income streams.”
Museum, United Kingdom
Financial burden of digitisation, licensing, and maintaining open access infrastructure: Open access activities and services may require significant upfront and ongoing investment in digitisation, rights management, technical infrastructure, and staff expertise, placing pressure on organisational budgets, especially where funding is time-limited or uncertain.
Costs of transitioning to open access: The pathway to openness can have unanticipated short-term costs related to legacy systems and materials, policy realignment, and staff training, reflecting organisational inertia and the resources required to adopt new practices.
Hidden operational and integration costs of free open inputs: Even when works are openly licensed and free of direct licensing fees, organisations may incur significant costs related to storage, management, transformation, and integration of materials into existing systems and workflows.
Unplanned financial liabilities due to legal uncertainty: Unclear licence conditions or incorrect public domain assessments may trigger legal challenges, resulting in unexpected compliance costs and resource diversion.
Shift in revenue models and value-capture mechanisms: Open access and open licensing may require organisations to move beyond traditional revenue models, relying more on indirect, partnership-based, or reputational forms of value that can be harder to measure, forecast, and integrate into existing financial planning frameworks.
Explore low-cost digitisation ideas: Digitise with smartphones; pilot the work with a small collection; use free platforms to publish materials for any reuse purpose, and low-cost platforms to publish materials with rights restrictions; coordinate a volunteer network to digitise materials; digitise on demand for a small fee.
Explore cost savings by adopting open licensing: Administrative and enforcement costs associated with paid licensing can be reduced by shifting to open licensing models. Savings arise from minimising or eliminating staff time spent on evaluating requests, negotiating fees, and managing agreements, while maintaining broad access to collections and avoiding substantial revenue loss.
Leverage indirect revenue and fundraising from open access: Institutions can use open licensing to complement existing funding and revenue sources by increasing visibility, strengthening narratives of public value, and enabling collaboration. While direct revenue gains from open access may be limited, openness can support fundraising, partnerships, retail activities, and grant acquisition, as well as contribute to cost efficiencies, helping to strengthen overall financial sustainability.
Diversify and realign value capture beyond direct licensing revenue: Reassess the opportunity costs of restrictive access policies and reducing reliance on direct monetisation of digital assets where returns are limited. Emphasising open access to digital collections can support wider audience engagement, partnerships, and social impact, while enabling alternative revenue streams such as collaborations, services, funding support, and mission-aligned commercial activities that better align with contemporary market conditions and institutional goals.
Explore funding opportunities dedicated to digitisation and open access projects and initiatives, which can help reduce financial pressure.
Engage in strategic partnerships: Collaborate with public and private sector partners, as well as third-party platforms and community networks, to share resources, reduce digitisation and infrastructure costs, and extend the reach of digital cultural heritage.
Public-private partnerships can help minimise upfront digitisation costs, but they require careful contractual design to avoid copyright or licensing arrangements that prioritise revenue generation or restrict open access.
Engagement with external platforms and communities (e.g. open knowledge or sharing platforms) can reduce infrastructure and hosting costs, while introducing new financial demands related to staff time, skills development, and content preparation. These costs can be mitigated by establishing residency programmes, such as community volunteers or interns (e.g. a Wikimedian-in-Residence), to support platform engagement, knowledge transfer, and sustainable participation.
Training and guidelines on how to build low-cost digitizing facilities and how to maintain the data:
Mobile Digitizing (MobiDig) project online platform offering an open and innovative training on the topic for librarians, archivists, managers of small organizations and Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers in the field of library science.
Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
CC Toolkit for Business: A set of resources to allow professional individuals and organizations understand why the use of CC licenses can be a strategic instrument to consider in their business models.
McCarthy, D. (2024) Balancing access and income – the dilemma of museum image licensing. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13371244.
Meletti, B., Erickson, K., Iramina, A., & Stobo, V. (2025) Open Licensing Models in the Cultural Heritage Sector. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15728474.
Pekel, J. (2014) Democratising the Rijksmuseum, Europeana Foundation.
Valeonti, F., Hudson-Smith, A., Terras, M. et al. (2018) Reaping the Benefits of Digitisation: Pilot study exploring revenue generation from digitised collections through technological innovation, conference presentation.
Valeonti, F., Terras, M., Hudson-Smith, A., Zarkali, C. (2019) Examining Mobile Print-on-Demand as an Alternative to Image Licensing for Monetising Digitisation to Promote OpenGLAM.
Low-cost digitisation ideas from real life projects in Pavis, M., Wallace, A., Saunders, S. (2023) Doing Digitisation on a Budget: A Guide to Low-Cost Digital Projects, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
How this risk area connects to other risk areas
Financial decisions shape legal, technical, and policy risk exposure. Reliance on restrictive licensing for revenue can increase legal complexity and ethical tension, while underinvestment in infrastructure heightens technical and geopolitical vulnerability. Diversifying funding sources, reducing dependence on fragile income streams, and aligning value capture with mission-driven openness can enhance institutional resilience and reduce susceptibility to political or market shocks.
Use cases
Publishers don’t make all their publications open access, because this would lead to a significant loss of revenue from hard copy sales. This loss impacts the financial sustainability of the journals, especially since they do not charge author processing fees to offset costs.
Repository managers don’t make high-resolution image collections fully open access, because unrestricted use could lead to commercial exploitation without compensation. This undermines potential revenue from licensing agreements with partner picture agencies, affecting the institution’s funding and financial viability.
Institution administrators don’t make all digital assets open access, because without control over usage, there’s a risk of images being used in commercial products. This affects revenue streams from licensing, which may be crucial for funding preservation and digitisation projects.
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