Incentivising open practices | Digital Curation Centre

"In his keynote at the Repository Fringe conference earlier this month, Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost, reported that UCL have done exactly that - there is now explicit recognition of open practices in the Academic Careers Framework.

'All research outputs are available through Open Access wherever possible'

This means that academics will be rewarded for open practices, whether that be making their published works available open access, sharing research data, or undertaking work in an open way. The addition is intentionally broad to recognise any contributions towards open scholarship. The provision is a threshold criterion, which is expected of all academic colleagues embracing the new Framework. Academic colleagues are free to submit examples of their Open approach to sharing their research outputs and the impact that this sharing has.

What was particularly encouraging to hear was that the University didn’t receive any resistance to this change. Typically the difficulties in updating policy and mandating openness are put forward as a barrier, but in their year-long consultation with Faculty, this provision was accepted.

Mirroring policy structures on a European level, the University has also established its own Open Science Policy Platform to coordinate work across all areas of open scholarship and ensure the institution leads developments in this field."