RCUK: Access to research
Connotea: stevehit's bookmarks matching tag oa.new 2012-11-06
Alexandra Saxon
Materials Today 15 (10), (Oct 2012)
Research Councils UK recently announced a new access policy for the science they fund. Alexandra Saxon explains the new policy and what it means for researchers. In 2005 individual Research Councils launched their Open Access policies. But the Open Access agenda has moved on rapidly in the intervening years which is why, in July, we launched a new Research Councils UK (RCUK) policy on Access to Research Inputs. Gone are the seven individual Council policies as the new RCUK policy harmonizes and makes significant changes to the existing Research Councils' Open Access policies. The new policy, which has been informed by the recommendations of the National Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (the Finch Group), has at its heart the drive to make the research that we fund immediately open to access and to reuse as soon as it is published. However, because we recognize that this option, the pay to publish “Gold” model of Open Access, is not always available we have retained a mixed model within our policy. This means that if there is not an option to pay to publish, researchers can opt for the “Green” model of open access where the paper would be available after an embargo period.