Today marks the start of the merger between the Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), two of the Research Councils UK (RCUK). The new merged entity will be called the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
PPARC mandated OA for PPARC-funded research while the CCLRC merely encouraged without requiring OA for CCLRC-funded research. (The CCLRC OA policy is apparently no longer online). The STFC has adopted the PPARC policy. See the STFC Research Grants Handbook, Section 8.2 on dissemination:
STFC supports the sentiments of the RCUK position statement on access to research outputs. Further clarification about the arrangements under which Research Organisations can make provision for the payment of publication fees under full economic costing can be found in a Research Information Network briefing note.
For all STFC grants arising from proposals submitted after 1 December 2006, the full text of any articles resulting from the grant that are published in journals or conference proceedings, whether during or after the period of the grant, must be deposited, at the earliest opportunity, in an appropriate e-print repository, wherever such a repository is available, subject to compliance with publisher's copyright and licensing policies. Wherever possible, the article deposited should be the published version.
In addition, the bibliographical metadata (including a link to the publisher's web site) must wherever possible be deposited, at or around the time of publication, in the relevant e-print repository.
This policy will be reviewed on completion (expected in 2008) of a project to be commissioned by RCUK, with the involvement of journal publishers, to investigate the impact of author-pays and self-archiving on research publication.
[This] means that instead of 5 out of 8 UK Research Councils mandating OA, 5 out of 7 now mandate OA. Worldwide, we have reached 23 Green OA Self-Archiving Mandates adopted (9 institutional, 3 departmental, 11 funder mandates, including the European Research Council, ERC) plus 6 more proposed (1 multi-institutional, 5 funder mandates), two of them (FRPAA in the US and EC A1 in Europe) big ones.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/01/2007 09:04:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
