Vision for a Science Nation:
Responding to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics:
Australia’s Future
Response by the Council of Australian Librarians (CAUL)
This response was prepared on behalf of CAUL by the CAUL Research Advisory Committee
and the CAUL Executive.
Contact the CAUL Office at caul@caul.edu.au or 02 6125 2990
31 July 2015
Submission
Introduction
The Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) is pleased to have the opportunity to
provide comment on the issues and options raised in Vision for a Science Nation.
Responding to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics: Australia’s Future.
CAUL, as the peak leadership organisation for university libraries in Australia, seeks to
enhance the value and capacity of Australian university libraries and to influence
scholarship, learning, and information policies and practices relevant to Australian higher
education. Our members are the University Librarians or equivalent of institutions which
have representation on Universities Australia.
CAUL believes university libraries make an important contribution to research innovation
through their support of researchers. The contribution made by university libraries is critical
to the success of Australia’s higher education system, one of the chief components of an
innovation system. A number of major changes in research and innovation practice have
increased the value that CAUL can bring, including:

changes in research practices, with data being increasingly seen as a valuable output of
research;

the emergence of alternative approaches to discovery, dissemination and access to
research information;

a policy environment that seeks to make the outputs of publicly funded research openly
accessible;

the broader application and importance of information management skills to research
support and innovation.
University libraries are leaders of change within their institutions, especially with regard to
the effective adoption of new technologies to support research and access to research
outputs.
CAUL values which are relevant to a national innovation system include:

collaboration within and across sectors;

commitment to resource sharing;

commitment to access to information, ideas and creative works without censorship;

respect for the intellectual and creative endeavours of others;

equitable access to services and resources;

innovation in the application of new technologies and service models;

excellence in operational and service delivery; and

openness, responsiveness and customer focus.
Further details about CAUL and its activities can be found at http://www.caul.edu.au/
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Over the past few years the role of university libraries has expanded to provide greater
support for research and innovation in higher education through:

provision of repositories to store, promote and preserve the digital assets and outputs of
universities;

management and, increasingly, creation of research resources such as datasets and
digital collections;

publication, especially electronic publication, of material based on research;

support for innovation in scholarly expression and communication;

provision of advice on data management policy and planning, metadata, standards and
persistent identifiers; and

transformation of services and physical facilities to support the development of students’
lifelong learning skills.
More flexible IP regimes and open dissemination of research
The Chief Scientist has called for more flexible IP regimes and open dissemination of
research results to enhance translation and commercialisation of research results and to do
this by expanding open access policies and improving the supporting infrastructure.
The Government's response in "Vision for a Science Nation" is most relevant in the section
Enhancing dissemination of Australian research" on pp16-17, saying that "the research
councils and some Government science agencies have arrangements in place to ensure
wide access to research publications arising from the research they fund or conduct. There
is no comprehensive policy covering all publicly funded research". The Government will
[therefore] develop a policy to ensure that more publicly-funded research findings are
shared openly and available to be used commercially or in other ways that will bring the
greatest benefit to Australians.
Comment:
There are two principal ways – not necessarily mutually exclusive – by which this can be
achieved.

The Green road – using publishers’ author rights policies to allow researchers to
make pre-published versions of papers publicly available via open access
repositories, often following an embargo period of variable length, and,

The Gold road involving, generally, paying publishers a per-article fee to make the
published paper openly and immediately available at the publisher’s site. It should
be noted that pure Gold journals are fully open access, for all content, from the first
date of publication.
Recommendation:
Given that there is no single clearly identified path for the successful transition of research
publication to open access, both paths should be analysed and appropriately supported in
order to achieve the desired outcome.
A third approach, commonly referred to as Hybrid open access, is to publish in a
subscription journal but to pay a publisher’s fee to have it immediately open access rather
than only being accessible to subscribers. This approach is frequently subject to “double-
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dipping” i.e. the publisher receives revenue from both subscriptions and from authors’ fee,
and is not required by most funding agencies in order to comply with their rules.
Comment:
With the importance placed on commercial exploitation of research discoveries, funding
agencies and institutions should seek the adoption of the broadest of CC (Creative
Commons) licences, develop meaningful requirements for compliance, as well as
encourage, with appropriate levels of funding, a wide range of approaches to achieving
open access. This would also require bridging the significant gap in the approach to open
access and compliance between ARC/NHMRC – which only requires a free-to-read
approach – and the AusGOAL-informed approach of other federal agencies with their
emphasis on appropriate Creative Commons licensing across a broader range of research
outputs. See, for example, the National Environmental Science Program Guidelines for
Applicants1 (p.8)
Again, given that there is no single clearly identified path for transitioning to open access,
Government should be prepared to enable appropriate infrastructure development to allow
for both approaches and, in particular:

Reduce the compliance and reporting burden on researchers;

Support systems which enable:

o
efficient deposit of research outputs,
o
the ready and reliable identification of grant-funding information and
researcher identity systems such as the ORCID identifier system being
encouraged/promoted by the ARC and the NHMRC, with implementation
being addressed by Universities Australia, CAUL, ARMS, ANDS and
CAUDIT.
Build the capacity of the existing institutional repository network in Australia – the
primary means for identifying and making available funded research outputs – to
work more effectively, including the ability to exchange data within and between
national and international repository networks.
Support for the myriad forms of open access publishing should be expanded, including the
identification of the most cost-effective means of achieving open access within the existing
publishing system.
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National Environmental Science Programme Guidelines (PDF - 2.93 MB)
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