Skip to main content

Bournemouth University

BU Research Blog

Latest research and knowledge exchange news at Bournemouth University

  • Home
  • RDS Team
    • Faculty-Facing Staff
    • Funding Development Team
    • Project Delivery Team
    • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Clinical Governance @ BU
  • Research Ethics @ BU
  • REF 2021
    • BU REF 2021 Code of Practice
    • Declaration of Staff Circumstances
    • BU’s Unit of Assessment Teams
    • REF FAQs
    • Archive – REF 2014
      • BU REF 2014 Code of Practice
      • REF 2014 Frequently Asked Questions
        • REF 2014 Overview
        • Staff eligibility
        • Mock REF 2014 (REF preparation) exercises at BU
        • REF 2014 Assessment of outputs
        • REF 2014 Staff selection
        • REF 2014 Equality and diversity
  • Impact
    • Partnerships & collaborations
    • Working with businesses
      • Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF)
    • Communicating your research
    • Influencing policy makers
    • Public engagement
      • Quick guide to public engagement
    • Student engagement
      • Stages of engagement
      • Case study: Sean Beer
      • Case study: James Gavin
      • Case study: Anna Feigenbaum
  • Research Toolkit
  • Research Lifecycle
  • Policy
  • PGR
    • The Doctoral College Team

April 23, 2014

An Overview of RCUKs Open Access Policy

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment, Research news sastringer

We recently received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from a reporter at Research Fortnight asking (in summary) how many of our Research Council (RCUK) outputs were made Open Access in the last year. The request highlighted that there is a lot of confusion about what is required from academics with RCUK grants in terms of Open Access. So, almost a year on from when the policy was published and spurred on from the FOI request I thought it was worth recapping on what the policy is and how we should be adhering to it. The full policy is available on the RCUK website. However, the key elements are as follows:

When

In April 2013, Research Councils UK (RCUK) launched their revised policy on Open Access with more gusto and clearer targets then ever before.

Aim

Current and future research fundamentally relies on access to the findings and ideas that come out of publicly-funded research. Research Councils UK (RCUK) fully support the concept of universal access so that everyone can benefit from this knowledge. Their policy on Open Access aims to achieve immediate, unrestricted, on-line access to peer-reviewed and published research papers, free of any access charge and their vision is for all users to be able to read published research papers in an electronic format and to search for and re-use (including download) the content of published research papers, both manually and using automated tools (such as those for text and data mining), provided that any such re-use is subject to full and proper attribution.

Scope

The policy applies to peer-reviewed research articles (including review articles not commissioned by publishers), which acknowledge Research Council funding, that are submitted for publication from 1st April 2013, and which are published in journals or conference proceedings.

The policy does not (currently) cover monographs, books, critical editions, volumes and catalogues, or forms of non-peer-reviewed material. However, RCUK encourages authors of such material to consider making them Open Access where possible.

open access logo, Public Library of ScienceExpectations of Researchers

Such works should be published in academic journals that comply with the policy. A Journal may comply with the policy through two routes:

  •  Gold Route

It must make the work immediately and freely accessible online under a CC-BY licence. An ‘Article Processing Charge’ (APC) may be payable. BU has a central fund to cover these costs – the Open Access Publication Fund.

  •  Green Route

The journal must allow deposit of the full and final text of the work (as accepted for publication including all changes arising from peer review) in a freely accessible online repository and without restriction on non-commercial re-use. An APC will not be payable. BU encourages researchers to deposit all articles upon acceptance in our instititional repository BURO via BRIAN.

The choice of route to Open Access remains with the researchers and BU, both ‘gold’ and ‘green’ routes to Open Access are acceptable. However, the policy preference is for immediate Open Access with the maximum opportunity for reuse (i.e. ‘gold’).

Works covered by the policy must acknowledge the funding source(s) using the standard format . They must also, if applicable, include a statement on how the underlying research materials – such as data, samples or models – can be accessed.

Implementation & Compliance

RCUK recognises that the journey to full Open Access is a process and not a single event and therefore expect compliance to grow over a transition period anticipated to be five years. The expectation is that:

  • In Year 1 (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014), research organisations ensure that a minimum of 45% of their research papers (arising from the RCUK research funds) are published Open Access, via either route.
  • In Year 2 (1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015), research organisations ensure that a minimum of 53% of their research papers (arising from the RCUK research funds) are published Open Access, via either route.
  • At the end of the transition period, RCUK expect researchers and institutions to be fully compliant with the policy, and for 100% of research papers arising from the research they fund to be published in journals that are compliant with their policy on Open Access. With 75% of Open Access papers being delivered through immediate, unrestricted, on-line access with maximum opportunities for re-use (‘gold’) .

Related Posts

  • EPRSC announces new open access policyOctober 11, 2011
  • Firsthand: HEFCE’s Open Access PolicyMay 30, 2014
  • HEFCE’s Open Access Policy for the next REF PublishedApril 1, 2014
  • HEFCE Open Access Policy – Adjustments and QualificationsJuly 28, 2015

BU staff can login below:

Other services

Don’t miss a post!

Subscribe for the BU Research Digest, delivered freshly every day.


 

Recent posts

BU research Funding opportunities EU
  • Building International PartnershipsJune 26, 2022
  • Vitae Conference – Career Development of ResearchersJune 23, 2022
  • Institute of Medical Imaging and Visualisation (IMIV) MRI Pump Priming Research Scheme Round 2 – Call Re-opensJune 23, 2022
  • Registration open: NIHR Training Camp 2022 virtual event, Tuesday 5 July, 12.30 – 17.15June 22, 2022
  • Parliamentary Knowledge Exchange Opportunity: Thematic Research LeadsJune 22, 2022
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on…UKRI Future Leader FellowshipsJune 22, 2022
  • Registration open: NIHR Training Camp 2022 virtual event, Tuesday 5 July, 12.30 – 17.15June 22, 2022
  • Parliamentary Knowledge Exchange Opportunity: Thematic Research LeadsJune 22, 2022
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on…UKRI Future Leader FellowshipsJune 22, 2022
  • Reminder – Spotlight on Wellcome Trust TODAYJune 22, 2022
  • UKRI Future Leader Fellowships Round 7 – Internal Process LaunchedJune 21, 2022
  • Funding Development Briefing – Spotlight on…Wellcome TrustJune 15, 2022
  • MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2022June 1, 2022
  • Successful GCRF Systematic Reviewing in Dementia Research Workshop in NepalMay 31, 2022
  • UKRO Subscription Services for BU Academics and StaffMay 23, 2022
  • EU Funding News, May 2022May 17, 2022
  • COST actions – European Cooperation in Science and TechnologyMarch 24, 2022
  • HE policy update for the w/e 18th March 2022March 21, 2022

Search by Category

Search by popular post topics

AHRC Brexit BRIAN BU research clinical research CMMPH collaboration collaborative research conference congratulations Edwin-blog-post ESRC EU Europe event Events Festival of Learning funding funding opportunities Fusion Fusion Investment Fund Health horizon 2020 HSC impact innovation knowledge exchange media midwifery Nepal nhs NIHR open access Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen publication public engagement publishing ref research Research Councils research professional RKE development framework social sciences training widening participation

RSS Research Information Network

  • Physical Sciences Case studies: information use and discovery
  • Information handling in collaborative research: an exploration of five case studies
  • Information literacy monitoring and evaluation
  • Data centres: their use, value and impact
  • Heading for the open road: costs and benefits of transitions in scholarly communications

RSS UKRI

Browse all our categories
  • Awarded & submitted bids
  • BRIAN
  • BU Challenges
  • BU research
  • BU2025
  • Business Engagement
  • Centre for Excellence in Learning
  • Clinical Governance
  • Coffee Morning
  • conferences
  • COVID-19
  • data management
  • Delicious links
  • Doctoral College
  • ECR Network
  • EPSRC
  • ESRC
  • EU
  • Events
  • Featured
  • Featured academics
  • Festival of Learning
  • Friday profile
  • Funding opportunities
  • Fusion
  • Fusion Investment Fund
  • Fusion themes
  • Global engagement
  • Grants Academy
  • Guidance
  • hate crime
  • HEIF
  • HSS Our 9 Research Entities
  • humanities
  • Impact
  • Industry collaboration
  • Info Days
  • innovation
  • international
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Knowledge Transfer Partnership
  • News from the PVC
  • nhs
  • NHS
  • open accecss
  • open access
  • parliament
  • Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
  • PG research
  • policy
  • Post-award
  • Postgraduate Research
  • pre-award
  • Public engagement
  • Publishing
  • R & KE Operations
  • REF Subjects
  • Research assessment
  • Research Centres
  • Research communication
  • Research Concordat
  • Research Ethics
  • Research Integritiy
  • research integrity
  • research methods
  • Research news
  • research opportunities
  • research staff
  • Research Supervision
  • Research themes
  • Research Training
  • RKE development framework
  • staff profile pages
  • Strategic Investment Areas
  • Student Engagement
  • student research
  • the conversation
  • Training
  • UKRI
  • Uncategorized
  • Vitae
  • Women's Academic Network
  • writing
  • Twitter

© Bournemouth University 2022. All rights reserved.

  • Charitable status
  • Website privacy & cookies
  • Copyright and terms of use