Policy on Access to Research Outputs - RCUK

Use the link to access the full text, newly released RCUK Policy on Access to Research Ouputs as well as a guide on the policy. “Free and open access to publicly-funded research offers significant social and economic benefits. The Government, in line with its overarching commitment to transparency and open data, is committed to ensuring that such research should be freely accessible. As major bodies charged with investing public money in research, the Research Councils take very seriously their responsibilities in making the outputs from this research publicly available – not just to other researchers, but also to potential users in business, charitable and public sectors, and to the general public. In June 2012 the report from the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (the ‘Finch Group’) - Accessibility, sustainability, excellence: how to expand access to research publications was published. The report sets out an encouraging and challenging road map to improve open access to scholarly literature and the Research Councils have used the findings of the group to further develop the policies that they have had in place since 2005... The Government has responded to the recommendations of the Finch Report and that response includes further clarification on the treatment of embargo periods in those cases (which will not apply to any Research Council funded research), where publicly funded research does not have access to Article Processing Charge (APC) Funds for OA publication purposes.”