Ensuring open access for publicly funded research | The BMJ

"The RCUK and Finch groups, like most supporters of open access internationally, prefer immediate open access and open licences to delayed open access and all rights reserved copyrights. These benefits are easier to achieve with gold open access than with green, but green open access can achieve them too if funders and universities are prepared to demand them. The RCUK and Finch group ultimately prefer gold to green because they want these benefits now, not later, because UK funders are willing to pay for them, because publishers want revenue beyond subscriptions for providing them, and because publishers had a major role in the policy deliberations.

The RCUK and Finch group take good advantage of the virtues of gold. The problem is that they fail to take good advantage of the virtues of green. The Wellcome Trust shows how to do the job better. The Wellcome Trust requires green open access for peer reviewed manuscripts arising from research that it has funded. If authors publish in open access journals with article processing charges, then the trust pays those fees and requires immediate open access under an open licence (soon to be CC-BY).10 Like the RCUK and Finch group, the Wellcome Trust mixes green and gold, but it harnesses the power of green open access to assure open access for its full research output. A rapidly growing number of funding agencies and universities from around the world take the same step for the same reasons. The green part of the trust’s larger open access policy may permit embargoes and omit open licences. But it is a fast and inexpensive first step to assuring free online access to research. That is a major advantage over the high access prices now shackling research, and that is the point. If we want to shorten embargoes and increase reuse rights, and we do, then we can take further steps, either by strengthening our green policies or paying for gold. What matters first is to use the tools we have to drive open access for the benefit of researchers and taxpayers...."