Business, Innovation and Skills CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by Research Councils UK (RCUK)

1. Research Councils UK (RCUK)

1.1 Research Councils UK (RCUK) is a strategic partnership of the UK’s seven Research Councils who each have a Royal Charter and together annually invest around £3 billion in research. We support excellent research, as judged by peer review, which has an impact on the growth, prosperity and wellbeing of the UK. To maintain the UK’s global research position we offer a diverse range of funding opportunities, foster international collaborations and provide access to the best facilities and infrastructure around the world. We also support the training and career development of researchers and work with them to inspire young people and engage the wider public with research. To maximise the impact of research on economic growth and societal wellbeing we work in partnership with other research funders including the Technology Strategy Board, the UK Higher Education Funding Councils, business, Government, and charitable organisations. Further details are available at www.rcuk.ac.uk.

1.2 This evidence is submitted by RCUK and represents its independent views. It does not include, nor necessarily reflect, the views of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The submission is made on behalf of the following Councils:

Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Medical Research Council (MRC).

Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

1.3 RCUK provided written and oral evidence (29 January) on open access to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.1 This written evidence has been prepared in the context of the debates of the Lords’ Committee and other recent developments

2. Benefits and opportunities of Open Access

2.1 A key principle that underpins the RCUK Policy on Open Access is that the ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded research must be made available and accessible for public use, interrogation and scrutiny, as widely, rapidly and effectively as practicable. The Research Councils thus have a responsibility to ensure the widest possible dissemination of the research we fund, from academics to SMEs, and from the general public to individual innovators. And to us, “use” means much more than just being able to read research papers—it means having the ability to re-use and exploit research papers in the widest possible sense. This may involve text and data mining to advance new areas of research, re-presenting collections of research papers in particular areas, mashing together elements of research papers with other information to create new information products, etc. With maximal openness and accessibility to the outputs of research comes maximal opportunity to read and to exploit research, and thus maximal opportunity for innovation. And from innovation comes growth, and benefit to the UK as a whole. The Research Councils’ preference for Gold OA delivers this maximal openness and opportunity for innovation through the CC-BY licence which we require where we pay an Article Processing Charge (APC).

2.2 This move to openness and reusability is already stimulating innovation. One Learned Society has discussed with RCUK its ideas to create a value-added service built around re-presenting research papers in a specific subject area from a variety of publishers. This is made possible through the use of the CC-BY licence. We also consider that open access to published research will help those individuals and organisations acting as knowledge brokers, enabling them to call on a much wider range of material to summarise, synthesise and report on in their role as intermediaries between researchers and industry.

2.3 Further commercial impact of the policy will be monitored over time but it is expected that there will be considerable benefits from the policy directly to business and other sectors.

3. RCUK Policy on Open Access

3.1 The Research Councils have a preference for the Gold model of Open Access and will be supporting this with block grants to eligible institutions to fund the associated APCs. We believe that in-line with government policy and the recommendations of the Finch Report,2 at the current time, the Gold option provides the best way of delivering immediate, non-restricted access to research papers, which in turn provides potential value to UK research and the broader UK economy. However, we are not anti-Green and are supporting a mixed approach to Open Access. The ultimate decision on which model to follow remains at the discretion of the researcher and their institution.

3.2 The RCUK Open Access Policy should be seen in the context of other OA policies, such as those from the Wellcome Trust.3 The Trust policy is that electronic copies of any research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by Trust funding, are made available through the PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC online repositories within six months of publication. Where this requires authors to publish using Gold OA and to pay an APC, the Trust will cover the costs of this by providing additional funding to grant-holders through their institutions. Similar to the RCUK policy, from 1 April 2013, the Wellcome Trust will also require use of the CC-BY licence wherever Trust funds are used to pay an OA fee.

3.3 The RCUK Policy on Open Access4 applies to peer-reviewed research papers that would normally be published in journals or conference proceedings, and which acknowledge funding by the Research Councils. It does not apply to other forms of scholarly output, such as books or monographs. The policy builds on individual councils’ policies on open access which have been in place since 2005–06.

3.4 According to this Policy, it is expected that Peer-reviewed research papers submitted for publication from 1 April 2013:

be published in journals which are compliant with Research Council policy on Open Access, and;

must include details of the funding that supported the research, and a statement on how the underlying research materials such as data, samples or models can be accessed.

3.5 To be compliant with the policy, Journals must offer either a “Gold” Open Access option, which results in immediate and unrestricted access to the published version of a paper via the journal’s web site; or a “Green” option, allowing deposit of the authors final peer-reviewed manuscript in an institutional or subject-specific repository, with a maximum embargo period on access of six months (or 12 months for AHRC & ESRC funded research). In addition, the policy requires publishers to use the Creative Commons “Attribution” licence (CC-BY), when an Article Processing Charge (APC) is levied. However, as indicated below, RCUK accepts that too sudden a change will be hard to manage productively, especially (but not exclusively) in disciplines supported by the AHRC and ESRC. We will therefore approach the implementation of green option embargo periods with this is mind over the five year transition period (reviewed in 2014). (See also paragraphs 6.5 and 6.7 below.) Details will be finalised in the final guidance to be published in late February.

3.6 Where Research Council funds are used to pay the APC for an Open Access paper, we require that the publisher makes the paper freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. This is the standard licence used by open access journals, and supports the maximum dissemination and reuse of published papers. It allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon a paper, even commercially, as long as they credit the authors for the original paper, but not in any way that suggests that they endorse the re-user or the re-use of the paper. The Wellcome Trust has adopted a similar requirement for papers where it pays the APC. The CC-BY licence opens up exciting possibilities for new areas of research by the re-use of papers and the content of papers through text and data mining, and for new ways of disseminating research through being able to re-present papers in innovative new ways. Crucially, the CC-BY licence removes any doubt or ambiguity as to what can be done with papers, and allows re-use without having to go back to the publisher to check conditions or ask for specific permissions. It is also worth noting that it is normal for authors to retain copyright of their manuscript and also, in some fields, pre-publication of the manuscript is the norm.

3.7 The Research Councils recognise that implementation of its policy on Open Access will require a major change in the way researchers, institutions and publishers manage the process of publishing and otherwise disseminating the results of the research that we fund. The Research Councils are also asking that this cultural shift takes place over a relatively short period of five years. For these reasons, the Research Councils see this transition to full Open Access as a journey and not as a single event.

3.8 During the transition period we expect researchers and their institutions to follow the spirit of the policy and strive to achieve full compliance. As the funding we make available for Gold Open Access increases during the transition phase, so will our expectations of compliance. At the end of the transition period we will expect researchers and institutions to be fully compliant with the policy, and for 100% of research papers then arising from the research we fund to be published in journals which are compliant with our policy on Open Access.

3.9 It is planned to issue updated guidance on implementation of the policy in late February, following the on-going process of engagement with various stakeholders. Current guidance is on the RCUK website.5 We recognise that the funding we are providing to HEIs to implement the policy is based on a number of estimates. We will therefore be undertaking a review of the policy and its implementation in 2014. We are making it clear that if there is real evidence that the policy is not working, that it is producing unintended consequences, or that the level of funding we are making available to support it is insufficient, we will take this evidence very seriously as part of the review. However, at present we are of course unable to make any commitments beyond the current Spending Review period.

3.10 Chronology of the development of the RCUK Open Access Policy. As RCUK had representation on and was involved in the work of the Finch Group, it was possible to develop the policy and engage with stakeholders about it in parallel. Although the chronology notes the major points of engagement with stakeholders, discussions have been on-going, and will continue to take place, with researchers, institutions, publishers and learned societies throughout this period. The main milestones within the process include:

2006—Research Councils publish their first Open Access policies.

October 2011—Finch Group established. RCUK has representation on the group.

March 2012—Informed by the work of the Finch Group, RCUK circulates a draft policy to representatives within the different research communities and to members of the Finch Group for comment.

18 June 2012—Finch Group publishes its report.

16 July 2012—Government publishes its response to the Finch Report and, simultaneously, RCUK publishes the finalised policy having taken on board comments from stakeholders.

17 July 2012—European Commission publishes their position on Open Access.

7 September 2012—Government announces and additional £10 million investment to “pump prime” Open Access, to be administered by RCUK.

27 September 2012—Sci-Comms Forum debate on Open Access. RCUK represented by Mark Thorley.

22–28 October 2012—Open Access Week. Many RCUK staff gave presentations and talks at universities across the Country about the policy.

8 November 2012—RCUK announced details of the block grant.

13 November 2012—Workshop on the policy held by RCUK. Around 60 representatives from universities, research organisations, learned societies and other sector organisations were able to discuss the policy and ask questions about it. RCUK also used the event to engage with the sector on the best ways to monitor compliance with the policy.

6 December2012—Russell Group convened meeting with PVCs for Research, publishers, learned societies and RCUK to discuss the RCUK OA policy.

9 January 2013—Meeting between RCUK and representatives of the Russell Group to discuss the policy.

31 January 2013—RIN convened a stakeholder forum meeting, including RCUK, as part of RIN’s programme of work on the implementation of the Finch Report.

4 February 2013—Meeting between AHRC, ESRC and representatives from the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences communities.

5 February 2013—Westminster Higher Education Forum meeting, “Open access research and the future of academic publishing”. RCUK representatives gave two presentations and participated in discussions.

12 February 2013—BIS convened meeting between publishers, learned societies and universities. RCUK will also be represented.

25 February 2013—Meeting organised by the Royal Society, AMS, RSC and IOP, Open access in the UK and what it means for scientific research. RCUK representatives will be speaking/participating.

Late February 2013—Finalised guidance to accompany the policy will be published. Input has been sought from a variety of stakeholders to ensure that it provides clear guidance for implementation.

1 April 2013—New policy comes into effect.

Autumn 2014—First review of the policy and its implementation will take place.

4. International context

4.1 It is acknowledged that this is a fast paced and transformative agenda not only for the UK but internationally. The RCUK Policy on Open Access has been developed in discussion with other stakeholders in the international research community. It is also noted that many stakeholders are currently developing their policies around open access based on the position within the UK. Examples of current international positions are given below and a table is provided in annex A as a summary of the European position:

For the European Commission, Open Access will be a key aspect to Horizon 2020 and will apply to all funding. The European Research Council has operated such policy since 2006 for its awards.

The European Commission has also made a recommendation to Member States on improving their policies and practices on open access, with preferably 6/12 months embargo periods.6

The Science Europe General Assembly have been considering their Open Access Working Group’s action plan. Science Europe is supporting the development of coordinated policies across Europe with a clear aim ultimately to replace the present reader-paid publication system with an author- or institution-paid one. Clear and transparent cost structures have also been identified as essential elements to enable the transition to open access.7

In Germany, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has introduced its current open access policy in 2006. DFG expects the publications issued from research it has funded to be made available in open access within 6 to 12 months, either via an institutional electronic archive or published in a recognised peer-review open access journal. Costs to cover APC are eligible as research costs within the grant.8 In addition, DFG provides Open Access block grants to universities to help them put in place stable funding for open access APCs. In order to be eligible to apply, German universities have to provide from their own funding 25% of the overall amount they expect OA costs will be. DFG has also imposed a cap of €2,000 for each publication that is paid from this fund and requires information from the university on how they intend to make the funding of OA sustainable in the future as part of the application criteria.9

FWF, the Austrian research funding agency, has had an open access policy since 2004 for sciences and humanities, and commits to the payment of APCs as a research costs.10 In 2011, FWF spent around €1.5 million on APCs (dedicated budget), for both Gold and hybrid journals (Source: Science Europe Working Group on Open Access survey). The FWF policy states that publications should be available via open access after six months (twelve months in exceptional cases). FWF is also a funding member of Europe PubMedCentral (previously known as UK PubMedCentral), alongside a number of UK biomedical research funders, including the MRC, BBSRC, NIHR and the Wellcome Trust.

In the USA, NIH has recently announced new measures to enforce its open access mandate, which requires all peer reviewed research papers to be archived in PubMedCentral within 12 months at the latest.11 A response to a petition submitted to the White House before the election is still expected requiring the NIH mandate to be expanded to all federal research funding.12 At the same time, a bill with a similar aim is currently progressing through Congress.13

Fast growing nations such as India and China also have Open Access on their agenda and indications are that the focus of discussion is also on shortening the embargo periods to a maximum of 12 months and enabling maximum use and re-use of published research. The emphasis is both on building a repository infrastructure as well as launching new open access journals. (COAR, the repository directory, currently lists 33 repositories for China and 52 for India). Several countries in South America have implemented legislation supporting open access to publication resulting from publicly funded research.14

The newly formed Global Research Council has made Open Access its main agenda item for their meeting in May. The aim is to develop and agree on an action plan for implementing Open Access to Publications as the main means of scholarly scientific communication.15

The Australian Research Council recently announced its open access policy and cites coming in line with other international funding agencies, such as the UK, as one of the reasons for introducing its policy.16

5. Support for Universities in the form of funds to cover article processing charges and the response of universities and other heis to these efforts

5.1 The total amount of funding that RCUK will put into supporting Gold open access is based on estimates of the numbers of publications arising from all Research Council-funded research activities. Publications data from 2010 & 2011 indicate that some 26,000 peer-reviewed research papers per year arise from Research Council-funded research, of which approximately 90% are produced within the HEI sector and 10% from Research Council institutes. The average cost of an APC has been taken from the Finch report (estimated as £1,727 plus VAT), though we recognise that these are highly variable, and may often be much lower.

Table 1

THE TOTAL VALUE OF THE RCUK APC FUND FOR SUPPORTING THE HEIS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RCUK POLICY ON OPEN ACCESS

Year	2013–14	2014–15	2015–16	2016–17	2017–18
Value of RCUK APC fund	£17M	£20M
Estimated % papers block grant will fund as Gold OA	45%	53%	60%	67%	75%

5.2 The value of APC awards from 2015–16 onwards will depend on the outcome of the next Spending Review, and any changes in funding resulting in the review of the policy planned for 2014.

5.3 This increase in funding over a five-year transition is a reflection of the time that will be needed for researchers, institutions and publishers to transition into a “Gold” OA model, as well as to allow existing publication funding, already provided through direct and indirect costs as part of grant funding, to be fully utilised. RCUK estimates that, in time, the steady state will be that some three-quarters of research council funded research will be published using the “Gold” OA route and a quarter using “Green”. However, we recognise that this will likely be subject-dependent and are not expecting to achieve this from day one of the policy being introduced. We will continue to review this figure during the transition phase as we gather further publications data.

5.4 Universities will receive block grants in proportion to the amount of direct labour costs (“directly-incurred” and “directly-allocated”) awarded on grants, provided it is above a threshold total of £10,000, that they have received over the three years from April 2009 to March 2012. Direct labour costs have been used as a proxy of research effort leading to the generation of publications, independent of the effects of equipment and infrastructure costs, and overheads. The 36 institutions from the Russell and 1994 groups of research intensive HEIs will receive just over 80% of RCUK’s APC funding. Seventy-one other institutions share the remaining funding.

5.5 In addition to RCUK’s block grant, the top 30 research intensive universities,17 based on combined Research Council and Funding Council investment, shared an additional £10 million made available by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills to “pump prime” open access. The ways in which this money can used to support the transition to the new open access model are flexible, with universities investing the money in setting up and administering publication funds, supporting their repositories, and paying APCs.

6. Agreeing embargo periods for articles published under the green model

6.1 RCUK sees the implementation of its OA policy as a journey rather than an event, and expects this transition process to take up to five years. RCUK is also committed to an early review of the policy and its implementation towards the end of 2014. During this transition, RCUK recognises that authors and their institutions will need flexibility in how the policy is applied.

6.2 Ideally, a research paper should become Open Access as soon as it is published on-line. However, the Research Councils recognise that embargo periods are currently used by some journals with business models which depend on generating revenue through subscriptions. Therefore, where a publisher does not offer a “pay-to-publish” option the Research Councils will accept a delay between on-line publication and a paper becoming Open Access of no more than six months, except in the case of research papers arising from research funded by the AHRC and the ESRC. Journals are not expected to introduce an embargo period where there has not previously been one, nor to lengthen an existing embargo period.

6.3 Because current funding arrangements make a six month embargo period particularly difficult in the arts, humanities and social sciences, where a publisher does not offer a “pay-to-publish” option, the Research Councils will accept a delay of up to 12 months in the case of research papers arising from research which acknowledges funding by the AHRC and/or the ESRC. However, this is only a transitional arrangement, for a period of up to five years, and both the AHRC and ESRC are working towards enabling a maximum embargo period of six months for all research papers.

6.4 Under the previous policy, only the Medical Research Council (MRC) had a defined maximum embargo period (six months). In future, where the publisher does not offer a “pay-to-publish” option for Open Access, the Research Councils will no longer be willing to support publisher embargoes of longer than six or twelve months from the date of on-line publication, depending on the Research Council.

6.5 Where the first choice of journal offers a “pay-to-publish” option but there are insufficient funds to pay for this, in order to meet the spirit of the RCUK policy, the Councils strongly prefer the author to seek an alternative journal with an affordable “pay-to-publish” option or with a Green option with embargo periods of six or twelve months. The Research Councils recognise that this may not be a feasible option in all cases, especially in non-STEM disciplines. In such a case we would expect the paper to be published in a journal which allows Green compliant OA, with an embargo period consistent with the Government’s response to the Finch Report of 12 months or 24 months, especially for research that acknowledges funding by the AHRC and/or the ESRC. Research papers in biomedicine should continue to be published with an embargo of no longer than 6 months (as has been the MRC’s mandated policy since 2006).

6.6 This does not represent a change to the RCUK policy. We still see the advantage to having shorter embargo periods of 6/12 months in opening up access to the journal articles in a more timely manner, and will be encouraging authors and institutions to opt for these shorter embargoes whenever possible. However, we recognise that this may not always be possible in the early stages of implementation.

6.7 The reasons behind the RCUK policy of embargoes of no more than 12 months are:

For open access to be “open”, there should be minimum delay between initial publication and free availability. This is also one reason for the preference of gold over green.

The MRC and the Wellcome Trust had had mandated embargoes of six months since 2006.

For Arts, Humanities and the Social Sciences especially, it was felt that to move immediately to a six-month embargo period would be a step too far, both for the academic community and for some publishers and learned societies. This would be consistent with the embargo periods of many other funders (eg NIH—embargo period of 12 months).

It was intended to encourage publishers to shorten their embargo periods to six/twelve months.

6.8 Despite RCUK’s, and the Government’s, preference for the Gold route to Open Access, the Green route should also be seen as a real option for open access publishing. In the meeting on 9 January 2013, between representatives of RCUK and the Russell Group, RCUK committed to considering a way forward that acknowledged the points made by the sector, around the idea of a phased implementation and potential distinctions between disciplines. As set out in the wording above, this discussion has led to the Research Councils making clear that during the transition phase, over the five years of introducing the policy, there could be some flexibility applied to embargoes where there are insufficient funds to follow the “pay to publish” route. It is noted though that this could lead to further potential difficulties in relation to interdisciplinary research, and the Research Councils will continue to consider this issue. Some disciplines, such as biomedical sciences, already have mandated embargo periods of six months and it would not be sensible for those to change.

7. Engagement with publishers, universities, learned societies and other stakeholders in the development of Research Council Open Access policies and guidance

7.1 Although the Research Councils did not hold a formal consultation before the new Policy on Open Access was launched, the draft policy was circulated in March 2012 to a variety of stakeholders in order to get feedback and input in the development of the policy. These stakeholders included representatives of the Russell Group and other HEIs, through the members of the Finch group; Learned Societies such as Academy of Medical Sciences; and other groups such as UKPMC (now “Europe PMC”) Funders Group. The draft policy was also mentioned in several blogs including Casey Bergman;18 Peter Suber;19 @ccess;20 and Intellectual Property Watch21 as well as by various other media including Research Fortnight (16 March 2012), Times Higher Education (22 March 2012), The Guardian (11 April 2012)and Nature.22

7.2 Following the launch of the policy, RCUK has been keen to engage with stakeholders on the implementation of the policy as we recognise that this is both a fast-paced and transformative agenda.

7.3 RCUK staff have given numerous talks to explain the policy and engage with HEIs and members of the research communities. This includes AHRC Subject Associations meeting (June 2012); Imperial College Science Communication Forum (September 2012); Westminster Briefing (September 2012); London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Open Access Week event (October 2012); Exeter University (October 2012); British Academy “Open Access for the Humanities and Social Sciences” (October 2012); Standing Conference of Physics Professors (November 2012); Research Libraries UK (November 2012); British Ecological Society Annual Conference (December 2012); and various Research Council regional engagement sessions with universities and other stakeholders during autumn 2012 (see also 3.10 above).

7.4 RCUK organised a workshop on 13 November 2012, shortly after the details of the block grant had been announced, in order to answer questions and to engage with representatives from Universities (and some other interested parties) on the details of the policy. The workshop also discussed the mechanisms that RCUK could put in place in order to monitor compliance with the policy. We want to work with the HEI sector to focus on changing the way researchers choose to publish their research, to help facilitate a sustainable transition to a new “normal” of full Open Access. Engaging with the sector in such a way has enabled us to consider reporting methods that build on existing processes rather than placing an additional administrative burden on HEIs. A note of the meeting is published online.23

7.5 Following some misunderstandings of the guidance for the policy, RCUK has committed to reviewing it and clarifying some of the wording. Attendees at the November workshop were invited to comment on the guidance and several responses were received.

7.6 RCUK will be continuing to engage with a variety of stakeholders throughout the implementation period of the policy. We will be holding a series of bilateral meetings with key stakeholders between now and mid-February 2013, to discuss details of implementation. These include another meeting with the Russell Group, with a range of Learned Societies, and with publishers across the spectrum of disciplines. We expect to recognise the outcomes of these meetings in the final guidance document to be published by the end of February.

7.7 There are also several other activities that RCUK has been working on, in partnership with other members of the sector, in order to develop understanding and best practice around the implementation of the policy. These include:

Facilitating a project within the HEI sector to develop common processes and procedures, and to share best practice to support implementation of the RCUK policy. RCUK will provide funding to support a project manager and discussions are underway with a number of organisations about hosting the project office.

In conjunction with the Wellcome Trust, commissioning the SHERPA-RoMEO group at Nottingham University24 to develop a support service to provide easily accessible and understandable advice on how journals provide compliance with the RCUK and WT policies.

In conjunction with the Wellcome Trust, we have written to the top 60 publishers of Trust and RCUK funded research to inform them of the changes in policy and to ask how they plan to comply with policy. This process has resulted in constructive dialogue with the major publishers and with publisher trade bodies (International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers; Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers; Publishers Association; and Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association). Meetings between RCUK, the Wellcome Trust and the trade bodies are continuing on a regular basis.

RCUK in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust have held constructive discussions with major commercial academic publishers, including Wiley-Blackwell, Elsevier, Nature Publishing Group, Oxford University Press and Taylor & Francis, and with learned society publishers such as the Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics and the American Chemical Society. From these discussions, and from work analysing the current OA status of journals, we are confident that the majority of journals used by UK researchers will be compliant with the policy. However, many publishers have still to make formal policy announcements in this area, especially around the adoption of the CC-BY licence for Gold. Of journals which have already provided OA offerings, those from the Royal Society are both Gold and Green compliant, Nature and Science are both Green compliant, and Institute of Physics journals offer Gold compliance with CC-BY. This is on top of existing policy compliant Open Access journals—such as those from Springer or the Public Library of Science (PLoS). Indeed, the OA journal PLoS One is now the top journal (in terms of number of papers) for research funded by MRC, BBSRC and the Wellcome Trust; the top journal for NERC-funded research is Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (an OA journal of the European Geosciences Union).25

RCUK, as a member of the UK Open Access Implementation Group (OAIG), is co-sponsoring the development of a number of OAIG activities to support the UK research community. These include an examination of the role of intermediaries in managing the payment of APCs, and an OAIG “resource pack” for learned societies on OA issues, including the opportunities that OA can offer to learned societies.

8. Challenges and concerns raised to date by stakeholders, and how these have been addressed

8.1 Much of the reaction to the new policy has been supportive and the main concerns are not with the policy as such but its implementation and the speed of the transition to a new “normal” of Open Access.

8.2 In addition to the engagement activities described above, RCUK organised a meeting on 9 January 2013 to engage specifically with concerns that had been raised by representatives of the Russell Group around the implementation of the policy. The half day meeting involved very constructive discussion and has led RCUK to reflect on the points made and consider introducing some flexibilities around embargoes, monitoring and reporting arrangements and legitimate uses of the block grant.

8.3 Some learned societies in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) have expressed concerns about making the Gold OA model work for their journals, because of specific issues over the small number of authors and the longer average article length, in relation to the number of subscribers, which would result in what are considered to be unsustainably large APCs. There is also some concern in the HASS community that HEIs will spend the RCUK block grant disproportionately on articles in the natural sciences. RCUK has no evidence that this will be the case. Whether it is will be part of the 2014 review.

8.4 In addition, there have been objections from some in the HASS community to the requirement to use the CC-BY licence for papers published using the Gold OA model. Some of the issues (for example, use of 3rd party material in papers) need further exploration. However, much of the discussion seems to be based on misinterpretation of what the CC-BY licence will and will not allow. RCUK has concerns that some communities are proposing to use the CC-BY-NC licence, which by disallowing commercial re-use, will impose barriers to the full re-use of published papers, and stifle innovation within scholarly publishing.

8.5 RCUK will ensure that the 2014 review includes an assessment of any differences of impact on the different disciplines and this will be specifically monitored through active engagement with the various academic communities.

8.6 Some of the feedback from the HEI community gives the impression that they are expecting RCUK to provide all the solutions, rather than recognising that HEIs, and indeed researchers themselves who provide all the content and much of the reviewing gratis, have a key role to play. It is insufficient just to state that RCUK is not providing sufficient funding, rather than acknowledging that the HEI community must play a key role in negotiating with publishers to drive down subscription and APC costs to enable the available funding to go further.

8.7 There is also a continuing and vocal campaign by a number of OA “pioneers” who consider that RCUK and Finch have made a major mistake in supporting the Gold approach to OA, in preference to Green. Their concerns are based around cost (Gold is using money that could be spent on research) and, from their perspective, the lack of any demonstrated requirement for re-use requiring a CC-BY licence. The RCUK position is that disseminating research is just as much a cost of research as is hiring researchers, buying consumables, and so on.

8.8 A common criticism, as noted above, is that the Research Councils are diverting money that would otherwise be spent on research into paying additional money to publishers in Gold APCs. The Finch Report recommended that “Gold” is the only long-term sustainable solution for publishers. However, RCUK considers that sustainability cuts two ways. The model also needs to be sustainable for funders and institutions. RCUK will make the data they collect on APC fees paid through their block-grant mechanism publicly available. We expect HEIs, JISC Collections and others (eg RLUK) to negotiate hard with publishers to drive down subscription charges to reflect the additional funding that they are receiving to support the payment of APCs. Indeed, we would expect publishers to introduce differential pricing in the UK market to reflect additional income they are earning through APCs.

8.9 There has also been some discussion of whether the major journals across the disciplines will be compliant with the RCUK policy. RCUK, in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust, has written to the top-60 publishers (in terms of volume) of Research Council and Trust funded research to inform them about the requirements of the policy and to understand how they intend to comply. This has led to a constructive dialogue with a range of commercial and learned society publishers, many of whom have provided us with “commercial in confidence” information on their plans for compliance with the RCUK and Wellcome Trust policies. Many publishers have yet to make formal public announcements of their plans, however, we are confident that a large majority of journals, especially within the STM sector, will become either green or gold compliant. We recognise that there could well be some key journals in the HSS sector which will not be compliant when our policy comes into force, and we are working to identify these and to engage with the relevant publishers to understand their reasons for non-compliance. We view compliance for journals in the same way as we see compliance for authors and institutions—as a journey and not an event.

8.10 In order to be able to give a snapshot of the current compliance position, each Research Council has identified what it considers to be a representative sample of the journals which are of importance to their community—regardless the country in which the journal is published. The current compliance status of these journals has been compiled from information held by the Research Councils and from the SHERPA/ROMEO26 project at the Centre for Research Communications at Nottingham University.27 The table in annex B gives the result of this analysis. It should be noted that this is the current position, and does not reflect the announcements about compliance that many publishers will soon be making. Out of 108 journals, 69 (64%) are compliant, the compliance of 21 (19%) is currently unclear, and 18 (17%) are not compliant.

7 February 2013

SCIENCE EUROPE MEMBERS POSITION ON OPEN ACCESS¹

Country	Organisation	OA policy	Green	Gold	Hybrid	APC paid Amount and % research budget (if available)	Specific OA fund	Embargo 6/12 months	Libre/ Gratis	Comments
Austria	FWF—Austrian Science Fund	2004	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes €1.4m (0.7%)	Yes	Yes		Also covers monographs
Belgium	Research Foundation—Flanders	2007	Yes	Yes	No	Yes		12		Part of grant funding
Belgium	Fond de la Recherche Scientifique	2009	No	Yes		No				Part of grant funding
Czech Republic	Czech Science Foundation	2008	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No			Part of grant funding
Denmark	Danish Council for Strategic Research	2012	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes		Part of grant funding
Denmark	Danish National Research Foundation	2012	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes		Part of grant funding
Denmark	The Danish Council for Independent Research	2009	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes			Clear opposition to hybrid and double dipping
Estonia	Estonian Research Council	Planning
Finland	Academy of Finland	2006	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No			Part of grant funding
France	ANR	2007	Yes							Deposit is mandated in A&H and SS, but not sciences
France	CEA*	Planned
France	INRIA *	2010	Yes	No	Yes
France	Inserm *	2003 (not mandated)	Yes	Yes						Favouring green and national repository. Opposition to double dipping. Caution on the costs of Gold.
France	IRD *	2006	Yes	No		No	No
Germany	Alfred Wegener Institute *	Planned
Germany	Forschungszentrum Jülich *	Planned				Yes €100,000 (0.02%)
Germany	Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH *	2006	Yes	No		Don’t know
Germany	German Research Foundation (DFG)	2006	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Part of grant and top up fund
Germany	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology *	2010	Yes	Yes		Yes €70,800 (8.85%)	Yes
Germany	Max Planck Digital Library *	2003	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes €440,000 (0.03%)	Yes
Germany	German National Library of Medicine; Cologne/Bonn *	2007	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Hungary	Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA)	2010	Yes	Yes		Yes
Hungary	Hungarian Academy of Sciences *	2013	Yes	Yes		Yes		12	Yes
Iceland	Iceland Centre for Research	2013	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Favours Gold immediate OA
Ireland	Health Research Board	2012	Yes	Yes		No				Favouring green and national repository
Ireland	Irish Research Council	2012	Yes					12
Ireland	Science Foundation Ireland	2009	Yes					12
Italy	National Research Council	2012								Signed Berlin declaration in Sep 2012
Luxembourg	National Research Fund	Planned				Yes
Netherlands	Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research	2010	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes €500,000 (0.07%)	Yes	9 months		OA fund capped on max. € 5000 per NWO-project
Norway	Research council of Norway	2009	Yes	No		No
Poland	National Science Centre	Planned				Yes				Cost covered in grant
Portugal	Foundation for Science and Technology	Planned	Yes	Yes		Yes		Yes	Yes	Modelled on RCUK and WT policy. Will be mandated. National repository
Slovakia	Slovak Research and Development Agency	Planned				Yes
Slovenia	Slovenian Research Agency	2012				No
Spain	Council for Scientific Research *	2008	Yes	Yes		Yes €26,780 (0.003%)				National law requiring green archiving within 12m
Sweden	Swedish Research Council	2010	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Sweden	Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research	2012	No	Yes		Yes
Sweden	Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Science and Spatial Planning	2010	Yes	Yes		Yes
Switzerland	Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)	2007	Yes	Yes	No	Yes				Part of the grant
United Kingdom	RCUK	2006	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Table Note:

¹ Please note this table does not contain complete information but will be updated regularly. Last updated 7 February 2013.

* Research Performing organisations (others are Research Funding Organisations)

Source: Science Europe Survey Oct 2012, Sherpa Juliet, OpenAire, and funders websites.

NATIONAL OA POLICIES (INCOMPLETE INFORMATION AS WORK IN PROGRESS)

Country	OA policy	Green	Gold	Hybrid	APC paid	Specific OA fund	Embargo 6/12 months	Libre/Gratis	Comments
Belgium	Oct 2012	Yes	Yes				Yes		Declaration of Brussels
France	Jan 2013	Yes	Yes				?		Minister Fioraso speech January 2013—Journee Couperin Promotion of platinum model –free to readers and authors—publication itself sponsored
Ireland	Oct 2012	Yes	Yes				Yes		Favouring green
Spain	2011	Yes					12		This is implemented through a national law.
Sweden	In preparation
United Kingdom	July 2012	Yes	Yes	Yes			Yes	Yes

PAN NATIONAL ORGANISATIONS

Country	OA policy	Green	Gold	Hybrid	APC paid	Specific OA fund	Embargo 6/12 months	Libre/Gratis	Comments
European Commission	July 2012	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes		H2020 announcement confirmed FP7 pilot. Recommendation to all mem ber states to implement national policy
European Research Council	2006	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		6		Part of grant

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Annex B

CURRENT COMPLIANCE OF JOURNALS (AS OF 6 FEBRUARY 2013)

Journal	Publisher in RoMEO	Gold Compliant	Green Compliant	Compliance Method	Comment
Acta Biomaterialia	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Advanced Functional Materials	Wiley-VCH	Yes	No	Gold
Advanced Materials	Wiley-VCH	Yes	No	Gold
American Economic Review	American Economic Association	N/A	Yes	Green
American Historical Review	Oxford University Press: Policy E	N/A	No	No
Angewandte Chemie International Edition	Wiley-VCH	Yes	No	Gold
Antiquity	Antiquity Publication	N/A	Yes	Green
Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Applied Physics Letters	American Institute of Physics	Unclear	Yes	Green	Gold licence unclear
Art History	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold	Green embargo period unclear
Astronomical Journal	American Astronomical Society	No	No	No
Astronomy and Astrophysics	EDP Sciences	Yes	Yes	Both
Astrophysical Journal	American Astronomical Society	No	No	No
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics	European Geosciences Union	Yes	Yes	Gold
Automatica	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Behavioral and brain sciences	Cambridge University Press	Yes	Yes	Green
Bioinformatics	Oxford University Press: Policy B	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Biomaterials	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
British Educational Research Journal	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)	Unclear	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo period unclear
British Journal of Management	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	No	Gold
British Journal of Sociology	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold
Cell	Elsevier (Cell Press)	Yes	No	Unclear	Green location unclear
Chaos	American Institute of Physics	Unclear	Yes	Green
Chemical Communications	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Chemical Engineering Science	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Chemical Society Reviews	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Circulation	American Heart Association	N/A	Yes	Green
Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Critical Quarterly	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold	Green embargo period unclear
Dalton Transations	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Design Studies	Elsevier	No	Yes	Green
Econometrica	Econometric Society	N/A	No	No
Economic Journal	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold
EMBO Journal	Nature Publishing Group: EMBO	No	Yes	Green	EMBO has a separate policy to Nature Publishing Group
Energy & Environmental Science	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
English Language and Linguistics	Cambridge University Press	Maybe	Yes	Green
Environmental Microbiology	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	No	Gold
European Physical Journal C	EDP Sciences	Yes	Yes	Both
Gender and History	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold	Green embargo period unclear
Genes and Development	Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press	Yes	Yes	Green
Genome Research	Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press	Yes	Yes	Green
Global Change Biology	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	No	Gold
History of Religions	University of Chicago Press	N/A	Yes	Green
IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems	IEEE	N/A	Yes	Green
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks	IEEE	N/A	Yes	Green
IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part B-Cybernetics	IEEE	N/A	Yes	Green
Immunity	Elsevier	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	No	Gold
JAMA : the Journal of the American Medical Association	American medical association	N/A	Yes	Green
Journal of Archaeological Science	Elsevier	No	Yes	Green
Journal of Cell Biology	Rockerfeller University Press	N/A	Yes	Green
Journal of Clinical Oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology	American Society of Clinical Oncology	N/A	No	No
Journal of Computational Physics	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics	Institute of Physics	Yes	No	Gold
Journal of High Energy Physics	Springer Verlag	Yes	Yes	Both
Journal of Management Studies	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold
Journal of Materials Chemistry	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Journal of Physical Chemistry	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required
Journal of Physical Chemistry C	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required; Gold licence wrong
Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics	Institute of Physics	Yes	No	Gold
Journal of Roman Studies	Cambridge University Press	N/A	Yes	Green
Journal of Social Policy	Cambridge University Press	Yes	No	Gold
Journal of the American Chemical Society	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required
Lancet	Elsevier	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Langmuir	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required; Gold licence wrong
Mind	Oxford University Press	Maybe	Maybe	Maybe	Green embargo period unclear; Gold licence
Modern Language Review	Modern Humanities Research Association	N/A	No	No
Modern Law Review	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Yes	Both
Molecular Ecology	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	No	Gold
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society	Oxford University Press: Policy P	No	Yes	Green
Nano Letters	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required; Gold licence wrong
Nature	Nature Publishing Group	No	Yes	Green
Nature Chemistry	Nature Publishing Group	N/A	Yes	Green
Nature Geoscience	Nature Publishing Group	Yes	Yes	Both
Nature Materials	Nature Publishing Group	N/A	Yes	Green
Nature Photonics	Nature Publishing Group	N/A	Yes	Green
Neural Networks	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Neuron	Elsevier	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
New England Journal of Medicine	Massacheusetts Medical society	N/A	Yes	Green
Nuclear Physics B	Elsevier	Yes	No	Gold
Optics Express	Optical Society of America	No	Yes	Green
Organic Letters	American Chemical Society	No	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo waiver required; Gold licence wrong
Past and Present	Oxford University Press: Policy E	N/A	No	No
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B- Biological	Royal Society	Yes	Yes	Both
Philosophy of Science	Philosophy of Science Association	N/A	No	No
Physica D-Nonlinear Phenomena	Elsevier	N/A	N/A	No	No agreement with funder
Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics	Royal Society of Chemistry	Maybe	No	Gold Maybe	Gold licence unclear
Physical Review A	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green
Physical Review B	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green
Physical Review C (Nuclear Physics)	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green
Physical Review D	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green
Physical Review Letters	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green
Physics Letters A	Elsevier	Yes	No	Gold
Physics Letters B	Elsevier	Yes	No	Gold
Plant Cell	American Society of Plant Biologists	N/A	Yes	Green
PLoS Biology	Public Library of Science	Yes	N/A	Gold
PLoS Medicine	Public Library of Science	Yes	N/A	Gold
PLoS One	Public Library of Science	Yes	N/A	Gold
Political Studies	Wiley-Blackwell	Yes	Maybe	Gold
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA	National Academy of Sciences	n/a	Yes	Green
Proceedings of the Royal Society B- Biological Sciences	Royal Society	Yes	Yes	Both
Progress in Human Geography	SAGE Publications	No	Yes	Green
Quarterly Journal of Economics	Oxford University Press: Policy E	N/A	No	No
Regional Studies	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)	Unclear	Maybe	Green Maybe	Green embargo period unclear
Reviews of Modern Physics	American Physical Society	No	Yes	Green	Gold wrong version
Science	American Association for the Advancement of Science	N/A	Yes	Green
Textual Practice	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)	Maybe	Maybe	Maybe	Green embargo period unclear; Gold licence unclear
The Classical Quarterly	Cambridge University Press	N/A	Yes	Green