The Finch Report and RCUK
policies
Michael Jubb
Research Information Network
5th Couperin Open Access Meeting
24 January 2013
The Political Context
innovation
 transparency
 returns on investment
 a key principle

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‘the results of research that
has been publicly funded
should be freely accessible
in the public domain’
Some related developments

Review of Intellectual Property and Growth (‘Hargreaves Report’)

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
Royal Society report on Science as an Open Enterprise


orphan works
text mining
intelligent access
Open Data White Paper

Research Transparency Sector Board



Justice Committee Post Legislative Scrutiny of FOI Act
Administrative Data Task Force
EU Commission


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Communication: towards better access to scientific information
Recommendation on access to and preservation of scientific
information
Amendments to public sector information directive
The Question and the Process
how to expand access, in a sustainable
way, to peer-reviewed research
publications
 group of 13 representatives of
universities, libraries, funders, learned
societies, publishers

different groups with different interests
 no perfect solution: ‘best-fit’

The Global Picture

2m. research publications a year


increasing at c.4% a year
25k scholarly journals
most subscription-based
 8k open access
 growth of hybrid journals
 commercial publishers and learned societies

Scholarly Communications and the UK
Research Community

120k publications in 2010



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strong competitive position

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13% humanities, social science & business
45% life sciences and medicine
42% physical sciences and engineering
more articles and more citations per researcher and per
£ spent
more usage per article published
citation impact and share of highly-cited papers second
only to US
factors underpinning this success
Monographs


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library expenditure on monographs declining
in real terms, while expenditure on serials is
increasing
rising prices and declining print runs
no clear open access business model as yet,
but some experiments

OAPEN-UK project (http://oapen-uk.jiscebooks.org/)
Mechanisms and Success Criteria


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

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more UK articles available
globally
more global articles available
in the UK
sustain high-quality research
sustain high-quality services to
authors and readers
financial health of publishing
and learned societies
costs to HE and funders



open access
journals
repositories
licence
extensions
Conclusions

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
no single mechanism meets all the success
criteria
a mixed economy
transition to OA should be accelerated in an
ordered way


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tensions between interests of key stakeholders,
and risks to all of them
costs
global environment
promote innovation and sustain what is
valuable
Recommendations




clear policy direction towards Gold open access
better funding arrangements, focusing responsibilities in
universities, not funders
minimise restrictions on use and re-use
expand and rationalise licensing

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HE and NHS
SMEs, public libraries
deal with subscriptions and APCs in a single negotiation
experiment with OA monographs
develop repository infrastructure
caution about embargoes
Some responses

Govt acceptance of recommendations

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£10m one-off funding
RCUK policy announcement

requirement for

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Gold + CC-BY (preferred), or
Green with 6month embargo (12 months for humanities and
social sciences)
consultation on REF 2020 awaited
universities establishing publication funds and policies
BUT
no co-ordinated implementation process
Research Councils UK (RCUK)
policies

requirement from 1 April 2013 for



block grant to universities to meet costs of article processing
charges (APCs)

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assumes c45% of articles from Research Council-funded projects
will be published in Gold OA journals in 2013-14, rising to 75%
by 2017-18
some discussions continuing on issues including scope of papers
covered, embargo periods, and CC-BY licences
management of publication process put firmly in hands of
universities


Gold with a CC-BY licence (preferred), or
Green with 6 months maximum embargo (12 months for
humanities and social sciences)
reporting and monitoring arrangements
research data?
Conclusion: some implementation
issues

development of Green repository infrastructure

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development of Gold infrastructure

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performance indicators?
university policies and procedures

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arrangements for payment of APCs
monitoring and evaluation of progress

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metadata standards and interoperability
mandates, compliance, performance management….
implications of REF 2020
research data?
Thank you
Questions?
Michael Jubb
www.researchinfonet.org