Funder mandates: why, what, who, when, where

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Funder mandates why, what, who, when, where how

• Rachel Proudfoot
• White Rose Research Online
• Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York

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Introduction Overview

• Why?
• What?
• Who?
• When?
• Where?
• How?
• So what?
• What next?

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Why? A bit of history

• House of Commons Select Committee on Science and
  Technology Report Scientific Publications Free
  for all?, 2005
• Recommendation 44
• Academic authors currently lack sufficient
  motivation to self-archive in institutional
  repositories. We recommend that the Research
  Councils and other Government funders mandate
  their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all
  their articles in their institution's repository
  within one month of publication or a reasonable
  period to be agreed following publication, as a
  condition of their research grant.

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RCs other funders

• Research Councils
• 1.4 billion on research grants to HEIs
• Fund ½ of funded research in UK HEIs
• Other funders interested in what happens to their
  research
• Wellcome (4000 original research papers)
• .. a survey undertaken by BioMed Central found
  that found that fewer than half of the articles
  resulting from NHS research grants are accessible
  online to NHS employees

Kiley, Robert and Terry, Robert (2006) Open
access to the research literature a funders
perspective, in Jacobs, Neil, Eds. Open Access
Key strategic, technical and economic aspects,
chapter 10. Chandos Publishing.
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International issue

• National Institute for Health (USA)
• The Public Access Policy requests that
  investigators funded by the National Institutes
  of Health (NIH) submit an electronic version of
  their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon
  acceptance for publication to the NIH National
  Library of Medicine's PubMed Central (PMC).
• Europe
• Petition for guaranteed public access to
  publicly-funded research results
• UK world leader in mandating deposit this talk
  is predominantly RCs Wellcome Trust

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What?Current policies

• RCUK broad principles
• The research councils' position is based on the
  assumption that publishers will maintain the
  spirit of their current policies.
• Require repository deposit
• Arts Humanities Research Council
• Biotechnology Biological Sciences Research
  Council
• Economic Social Research Council
• Medical Research Council
• Natural Environment Research Council
• Strongly encourage
• Science and Technology Facilities Council
• Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council
• The issues are complex review in 2008

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What?Current policies

• Wellcome Trust
• Prefers open access publishing
• Will fund open access publication
• Variation in policy
• JULIET can help

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A note on DOIs

• Some academics think DOIs embody access rights
• May be reinforced by RAE data collection process
• DOI ? open access compliance

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Who?Stakeholders

• Funders (govt others)
• Researchers as authors and users
• University administrators key role
• Repository staff advocacy and technical
• Library staff awareness of options
• Service providers hosted repositories
• Public
• Publishers
• General awareness low outside biomedicine
• Do authors read grant documentation?

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When?

• Most requirements already in force
• Wellcome since Oct 2005
• Most RCs since Oct 2006
• AHRC Oct 2007
• Impact yet to be felt publications likely
  2008/9
• Some time to prepare
• (But of course we want all research now,
  regardless of funder ?)

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Where?Institutional, subject, funder?

• Your local institutional repository!
• The Depot
• What about
• ESRC
• MRC
• Wellcome

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How?Case study 1 ESRC

• ESRC's policy
• IncReASe Project White Rose partners
• Practicalities of deposit
• Where is the funder and grant data
• Metadata
• Workflow
• ESRC / institutional repository workflow
• What push/pull mechanisms are required
• early(ish) 2008

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SWORD

• Disclaimer non techie alert!
• (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit)
• JISC funded
• Atom Publishing Protocol
• A lightweight protocol for putting stuff in other
  places
• (Looking for case studies!)

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Case study 2 Wellcome Trust MRC

• Require deposit in UKPMC
• Manuscript submission system
• .. A system designed hoping no-one will use it.
• Needs sign off at two points by PIs
• Deposit via local repository needs to be tested
  asap need elegant solution
• Double sign off by the PI.
• Need to have grant data
• Dont want to make promises to biomedicine we
  cant keep

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Is medicine a special case?

• Unfortunately comparatively little of our
  funding supports this kind of e-deposit approach
  to open access. In addition, many of the journals
  we target are either already fully compliant with
  open access requirements or alternatively
  completely noncompliant-the AACR journals being
  notable culprits. In either case the repository
  is of little use.
• Interested in using a repository for
  supplemental data

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Wellcome MRC

• One difference
• WT provide specific funds for OA publishing MRC
  position more complex

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Open access fee payment

• RIN briefing note
• Publication fees as directly incurred costs
• Publication fees as indirect costs
• Nottingham central fund
• UCL, Imperial, Edinburgh
• Leeds experience
• Maybe
• Stress its an interim measure
• Avoid perception of the fund as a library issue
• Have some weighting mechanism for disciplinary
  differences
• Think carefully wholl administer fund secure
  agreement

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So what?Benefits of funder mandates

• OA
• Additional rationale and justification for
  repository
• Pitch in a different way
• Repository becomes problem solving
• External stipulation of versions
• Will make researchers think about dissemination
  stop publication disengagement job done

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Challenges of mandates

• Interface with internal systems
• Interface with external systems
• Researcher attitudes tick box?
• Data deposit / research outputs joined up
  thinking
• It will lead to offensive/defensive behaviour by
  publishers.

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Case study 3SAGE

• Sage goes RoMEO green - Oct 2004
• 12 month embargo
• If funding agency rules apply, authors may use
  SAGE open to comply
• Authors are required to contact publisher before
  posting (permissions .. will always be granted)
• Are funder mandates a licence to embargo?

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What next?

• Awareness engagement with researchers
• Opportunity to support research in the round e.g.
  Nuffield foundation
• You should include in the body of your
  application a discussion of what kind of
  dissemination might be appropriate and how you
  plan to carry this out
• Development of elegant technical solutions!
• Requirement workflow integration

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• The research councils' position is based on the
  assumption that publishers will maintain the
  spirit of their current policies.
• Watch how publishers respond
• Embargo
• Double dipping
• How do we counteract or challenge labyrinthine
  publisher positions?