Chemistry Central Blog

EPSRC announces new policy on access to research outputs

The UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has announced a new policy on access to research outputs that it funds.

From September 1st, all EPSRC-funded research articles that are submitted for publication will need to be made available on an open access basis. This policy is being introduced to ensure that this research is made as widely and freely available as practicable, in line with the Research Councils UK position statement on access to research outputs.

The policy ‘requires authors to... ensure that all published research articles arising from EPSRC-sponsored research, and which are submitted for publication on or after 1st September 2011, must become available on an Open Access basis through any appropriate route’.

Authors will be able to choose between ‘Green’ open access publishing, where research is published in a subscription journal, with the peer reviewed papers being archived in an online repository (typically following an embargo period), or the ‘Gold’ option, where peer reviewed papers are published in open access journals which do not charge subscription fees. The EPSRC will cover publication costs associated with ‘Gold’ open access publishing, either as 'directly incurred costs' (if incurred before the end date of the relevant research project) or as indirect costs (and hence factored into the fEC indirect cost rate for the relevant research organisation)’.

This policy mirrors those of other funders such as the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, and should provide UK-based researchers with the opportunity to make their work as widely and easily accessible as possible.

Posted by Bailey Fallon at 15:10    Comments (0)