BioMed Central Blog
Research Councils UK planning to increase support for open access
Research Councils UK, the organization responsible for the major share of public funding for scientific research in the UK, has just published the results of an independent study that it commissioned to look at the impact of the open access policies which were introduced by individual Research Councils in 2006, and more generally to examine the impact of open access journals and open access repositories on the traditional scholarly publishing system.
Based on the results of the study, the announcement noted that the Chief Executives of the Research Councils "have agreed that over time the UK Research Councils will support increased open access, by:
- building on their mandates on grant-holders to deposit research papers in suitable repositories within an agreed time period, and;
- extending their support for publishing in open access journals, including through the pay-to-publish model."
This news from RCUK follows a similarly positive joint report from the UK Research Information Network and Universities UK, which encouraged research institutions and funders to work together to develop a coordinated approach to the funding of open access publication costs.
BioMed Central has published a series of case studies showing how research institutions are adapting their funding structures to support an open model for scholarly communication with the creation of central open access funds. Recent additions to the series include case studies on the University of Calgary and the Max Planck Society.
Posted by Charlotte Webber at 08:52 Comments (0)
