How to make HEFCE's Research Excellence Framework open access policy into great news for universities | Jisc

"The Wellcome Trust strengthened their open access policy last year and now withhold part of the grant available to authors until an author they comply with their approach.  This is because open access increases the impact of the biomedical and health research that Wellcome funds, which can only be a good thing.  From the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) onwards, the same link between open access and research funding will be cemented throughout UK higher education, for pretty much the same reason.  Research funders across the world now broadly agree that they will get the most value from their investments by stipulating that the outputs from research are openly available for others to use - both within universities and beyond.  There are different emphases: on straightforward access to publications; on re-use rights; on the importance of competition and lower prices for journals; on embargo lengths where no payment is made to the journal.  However the direction is clear, this change is now irrevocable ... However, the REF policy is potentially a simpler and bigger win for universities.  If they make the relatively small changes needed to their systems and exploit third party services that are becoming available then universities will have a comprehensive record of their research output together with a means of monitoring its use and impact.  While the REF policy itself does not require that research papers are available through an institutional repository, it does note that Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) is working with Jisc to ensure that papers can easily be made available in that way.  The implication is that universities taking up the Jisc work will be in a good position to manage their submission to the next REF.   So what is that Jisc work? ..."