Information for Funding Agencies

Many funding agencies now have rules in place which make deposit in an open access repository a requirement of any research grant. Other funders make a strong recommendation for deposit, or may make additional funds available for publication in an open access journal.

Central to the recommendations of theEuropean Commission's Study on the Economic and Technical Evolution of the Scientific Publication Markets in Europe is the development of a European policy mandating open access to EC-funded research. The study emphasises the role of research funders in this:

"…there is a central role for research funding bodies in Europe in the shaping of new models for publishing and communicating research results."

The European Commission is conducting a pilot initiative on open access to peer reviewed research articles in its Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7). In this pilot, open access to articles resulting from research funded in areas participating in the pilot should be provided within a specified time period. This pilot will run until the end of FP7. Further details on this open access pilot in FP7 can be found on: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/open_access

Recommendations

Funding agencies should develop policies on Open Access. These policies should:

1. Allow researchers to publish wherever they feel is most appropriate
2. Increase the visibility of and improve access to the research
3. Be based on recognised best practice
4. Mandate that all researchers funded lodge their publications resulting from funded research in an open access repository as soon as possible after publication, to be made openly accessible within 6 months at the latest.
   1. The repository may be a local institutional and/or a subject repository.
   2. Authors should deposit post-prints (or publisher's version if permitted) plus metadata of articles accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings.
   3. Deposit should be made upon acceptance by the journal/conference. Repositories should release the metadata immediately, with access restrictions to full text article to be applied as required. Open access should be made available as soon as practicable after the author-requested embargo, or six months, whichever comes first.

These recommendations were developed from the EURAB report "Scientific Publications: policy on Open Access".

Support & Services

SHERPA maintains JULIET, a list which summarises the Open Access policies of research funders and provides links to each. Please contact JULIET to add your Open Access policy to the database.

See also: DRIVER briefing paper for research funders.

Last updated: 15-Jan-2009