What is Open Access?
Open Access means providing unrestricted access to peer-reviewed research outputs. This means that if an article is Open Access, it can be read by anyone in the world with an internet connection. As a result, the potential readership of an Open Access article is far, far greater than one where the full-text is restricted to subscribers. By increasing the number of readers, article citations also significantly grow.
Why Open Access?
- Makes the most of public funds
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Open access allows everyone to view publicly funded research for free. This replaces the traditional model where UK universities donate time, labour and public money to the production of peer reviewed scholarly work, only to have it sold back to them via large journal subscription fees (estimated at £192 million per year).
Open Access also offers major social and economic benefits, conforming with the Government’s commitment to transparency of data and making ethical use of the general tax paying public’s money. Professionals, patients, journalists, politicians, civil servants or interested hobbyists will be better informed as a result of having access to the latest research.
- Accelerates research and increases impact
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The sharing of information is fundamental to research. Modern technology makes this process more effective than ever before. However, paying for access impedes usage. Removing the pay wall will increase the visibility of your work, leading to increased usage, leading to increased citation impact.
- Ensures compliance with research funder’s policies
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Many funding bodies will now only finance work that is to be made Open Access. The following UK and EU funders with OA requirements are:
Research Councils UK (RCUK) policy on OA applies to peer-reviewed research articles and conference proceedings which are submitted for publication from 1st April 2013.
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) have a requirement that papers must be deposited in the Europe PubMed Central repository.
Medical Research Council (MRC) have produced a list of frequently used journals with information on their compliance with MRC's OA policy. MRC have a requirement that papers must be deposited in the ESRC Research Catalogue.
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Different options for Open Access: Green and Gold
Open Access can be provided in two ways:
| GREEN | Authors publish in a journal and then self-archive a version of the article in their institutional repository (such as Sussex Research Online), or subject based repository. |
| GOLD | Authors publish in a journal which provides Open Access to the article through the publisher’s website. There is usually a fee for this, known as the article processing charge (APC). |
RCUK Policy on Open Access
RCUK issued its Open Access Policy earlier this year and can be accessed online. All researchers they fund have to publish on an OA basis in journals which comply with their policy, via either:
- Green - With a maximum six month embargo period for STEM subjects (12 months for the transition period)
- Gold
There will be a transition period of five years for this move to Open Access, and only 45% of research outputs will be expected to comply within the first year (2013/14). The Research Councils will review their policy after the first year.
RCUK have also provided some useful FAQs on their policy.
The Finch Report 2012
The Finch Report of June 2012 recommended the large scale adoption of "author pays" OA within the UK, and this has been endorsed by the UK Government and RCUK. Many of the Research Councils and other UK research funders mandate OA publication as a condition of the research that they fund. Providing Open Access to your research gives it greater visibility and there is evidence to suggest that this can lead to greater citations.
REF 2020
HEFCE recently issued a consultation on Open Access in a post-2014 REF, and it is likely that to be included in a future REF submission, research outputs will have had to be made available Open Access. Read HEFCE's consultation here.
There is no Open Access requirement for REF 2014.
Find out more