Michael J. Fox Foundation Crafts Open Access Policy to Advance Parkinson’s Research - SPARC

"Looking to do the most good with its donor contributions and speed the pace of progress to help people living with Parkinson’s disease, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) recently adopted a progressive open access policy. It serves as a model to funders that want to broaden the dissemination of research results and advance scientific discovery.

As of March 2, the foundation requires that all articles resulting from work it has funded be published in a preprint repository, then in an open access forum under the Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0) or equivalent license. The policy also mandates any data, code or software needed for independent verification of research results also be made freely available in an open repository. 

To ensure that the policy takes hold, MJFF will cover the article processing charges (APCs) of open access publication, including the publication of articles resulting from past MJFF research grants. The foundation requires grantees to provide proof of compliance, and adherence to the policy is required for subsequent funding. ..."