Category / Post-award

Money available for you to publish your articles Open Access! – International Open Access Week

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

Back in April 2011 we launched the BU Open Access Publication Fund. This is a dedicated central budget that has been launched in response to, and in support of, developments in research communication and publication trends. The fund is also to support research in complying with some of the major funding bodies who have introduced open access publishing requirements as a condition of their grants.

The fund is available for use by any BU author ready to submit a completed article for publication who wishes to make their output freely and openly accessible.

If you are interested in applying to the fund then you need to email Pengpeng Hatch in RKEO with the following information:

  • Name of the open access publication
  • Confirmation this will be a peer reviewed paper
  • A short justification (1 paragraph) of why it is beneficial for your research article to be published open access
  • The cost of the open access publication
  • Likely publication date
  • Likely REF Unit of Assessment (UOA)
  • A copy of the paper

If you have any questions about the Fund then please direct them to Pengpeng via email.

Further information: BU Open Access Fund policy

Knowledge Should Not Be Trapped Behind A Paywall – International Open Access Week

BU research, Post-award, Publishing

(article originally published on http://www.eff.org), 2 October 2014)

Now in its eighth year, Open Access Week is an international event that celebrates the wide-ranging benefits of enabling open access to information and research–as well as the dangerous costs of keeping knowledge locked behind publisher paywalls.

From October 20 to 26, academics, researchers, and curious minds everywhere will be encouraged to learn about the various hurdles to open knowledge and share stories of positive advancements in the effort to make open access the norm in scholarship and research.

Whether you’re looking to learn more, to champion open access policies, or to raise awareness in your community, there are plenty of ways to get involved in Open Access Week. Read on to find out why we fight for open access to knowledge and how to take part in Open Access Week activities.

Why Open Access?

When we say “open access” we are referring to the practice of making scholarly research available online for free upon publication (or soon after). Open access policies should aim to remove barriers and encourage scholarly and educational reuse of research. Copyright restrictions sometimes undermine scientific ideals of openness and collaboration; good open access rules help to bypass traditional copyright limits by encouraging full use of open licensing systems that enable sharing.

Reasons for supporting open access policies abound. From maximizing taxpayer funded research to increasing the exposure and use of publications, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration, and enhancing the overall advancement of scholarship, the need for open access is more important now than ever. As tuition prices continue to rise and Internet adoption is at an all time high, trapping knowledge behind prohibitively expensive paywalls is a disservice to scientists and problem solvers across the world. Progress is stifled.

Research institutions, academics, and the intellectually curious are increasingly embracing the open access model for research worldwide. Open Access Week is about keeping the dream of easy-to-access knowledge alive. And we have a chance to connect this global momentum toward open sharing with the advancement of constructive policy changes on the local level.

This year’s theme is Generation Open. We’ll be focusing on the importance of students and early career researchers embracing open access, and exploring how changes in scholarly publishing affect academics and researchers at different stages of their careers.

What You Can Do

There are all kinds of ways to get involved. We invite you and your community to join us for this exciting week of action. Here’s how:

  • Write a blog post or place an op-ed in your local newspaper or on-campus publication. Find out if your campus has an open access policy and tell your story about why open access is important to you. Let us know if you write something.

  • Share on social media: simply spreading the word is important … and easy! Post your thoughts about open access and share articles and media that EFF will be posting throughout the week. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

  • Host a screening and discussion about the film The Internet’s Own Boy, a powerful documentary that tells the story of activist and innovator Aaron Swartz, who also was a passionate and outspoken advocate for open access. Here is our guide to help you organize a screening of this important film. Be in touch if you decide to organize a viewing.

  • Print and share handy guides to help people in your community get up to speed on why we demand open access to research. There’s one on Diego Gomez’s case and one on the open access movement more broadly.

EFF has long been a leader in the open access movement. The Internet should be a place where we can share ideas and get educated, unimpeded by unfair paywalls. We are thrilled to join forces with dozens of organizations across the world for this year’s Open Access Week to spread message loud and clear: research should be free, available, and open for everyone’s benefit. Generation Open, here we come.

Celebrate International Open Access Week at BU — 20 to 26 October 2014

BU research, Post-award, Publishing

Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eighth year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.

WHAT IS IT?       Open access is free, unrestricted access to peer-reviewed scholarly research literature and data.

WHY DO IT?       Publicly-funded research should be made freely available to the community who support it

BENEFITS

To the members of public

  • Allows access to journal articles without restrictions of costs and time delay
  • Reveals the latest medical discoveries and breakthroughs (which may save your life)
  • Gives crucial information  freely to medical professionals, students and nurses in developing countries so saving thousands of lives
  • Enriches the educational experience of millions of students and teachers around the world (who otherwise cannot afford subscriptions to prestigious journals)

To the academics

  • Removes  barriers  to networking and sharing research
  • Increases exposure and use of publications
  • Facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and new discoveries
  • Increase usage, citations and impact

Please visit the links below to hear from our academics about some of the Open Access research that is available to you:

Get involved. Participating in Open Access Week can be as simple or involved as you like. It can also be a chance to let your imagination have full rein and come up with something more ambitious, wacky, fun.

Celebrate Open Access at BU and join us in these exciting events. No need to register, just turn up.For more information about

  • The International Open Access Week and how you can get involved or help out;
  • Open access in general;
  • how to publish your article open access

Please get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch (pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk, tel: 01202 963154).

All logo and colour scheme attributed to : www.openaccessweek.org

Researchfish is now LIVE

BU research, Post-award, Research news

Image sourced from The Academy of Medical Sciences

On 4 June 2014, RCUK announced that the Researchfish system will be used to replace the Research Outcomes System to collect the outcomes of the research that they fund. The RCUK Outcomes Harmonisation Project was then established to oversee the successful implementation of Researchfish as a harmonised outcomes collection service for all Research Councils by September 2014 for this purpose.

Researchfish is now live and all Principal Investigators for grants funded by AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC or NERC should have been notified by RCUK and have
received registration emails from the Researchfish system. With this implementation, the Research Councils UK will now follow a common annual timetable for grant holders to confirm that the information in the system is complete and up-to-date. The first harmonised ‘submission period’ will run from 16 October – 13 November 2014.

It is vital that all RCUK grant holders engage fully with the new Researchfish system. Please take note of the following:
  • The first harmonised ‘submission period’ will run from 16 October – 13 November 2014.
  • Researchfish is offering a series of webinars for researchers to learn how to use Researchfish. You can click on this link to register.
  • All affected grant holders will shortly receive an email from RKEO as a further reminder and a calendar reminder of the harmonised ‘submission period’.
  • RKEO will be providing two presentation sessions in the first week of October to help grant holders understand the initiative behind adopting the Researchfish.

    Image sourced from the Aquaculture New Zealand website

– Talbot Campus – CG04 – 11.30am to 12.30pm – 2nd October 2014

-Lansdowne Campus – EB202 – 11.30am to 12.30pm – 3rd October 2014

For more information on this, please get in touch with Pengpeng Hatch. (Tel: 01202 961354; Email: pphatch@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Flipping healthcare and research for service improvement! An inspiring FIF networking project

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Post-award

 

The idea for ‘flipping’ comes from education. It refers to the concept of students watching key content before they come to the classroom. Then when they do come together, they do so to grapple with and apply what they’ve been taught. This concept has been translated into healthcare by the CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Maureen Bisognano. Instead of ‘what’s the matter?’ the flipped question becomes, ‘what matters to you?’. Put another way, healthcare needs to move from a system that does things to patients to one that works with them to achieve best results. These flipped changes imply that we need to work differently to improve things.

Realising we needed to do things differently with the traditional research-based Master’s dissertation is where we were three years ago. In a previous BU research blog we have written how, over the years, we struggled with the relevance of this type of dissertation to professional practice, in particular social work services. That was why we designed the National Centre for Post-Qualifying Social Work’s service improvement programme, which uses an academically robust, practice-based, service improvement methodology with a focus on professional judgement. Towards the end of this Fusion Investment Fund networking project we realised that we’d flipped research for service improvement.

Uniquely, our service improvement programme fuses service improvement focused education and research with professional practice and is now used across nearly all the School of Health and Social Care’s Master’s Framework. As a result, increasing numbers of students from a health background have been accessing the programme. Recognising our need as two social work lecturers to further understand, share and engage with the culture and strategic intent of key health organisations around the topic of service improvement, we created a series of high-level networking opportunities with organisations including:

Institute for Healthcare Improvement (Boston)

The Beryl Institute (Dallas)

The Health Foundation (London)

NHS Improving Quality (Leeds)

As well as meetings with Maureen Bisognano and Jason Wolf (President of the Beryl Institute), we followed up a number of local contacts in the UK and the US to see first-hand how their way of doing service improvement works out in practice. Therefore, as a result of this networking project, we have widened our national and international networks considerably. And  yes, we submitted a peer-reviewed journal article too; yes, we’ve written 5 blogs; and yes, we’ve updated our unit guides and improved the way we teach the programme; yes, we’ve fed back what we’ve learnt to others; and yes, we’ve thought of many ideas for future research projects – in one sense, these are not the main returns of enacting a project like this.  The key benefit has been the inspiration to do these things. And that has come from being willing to learn from others.

For all those on the edge of applying for a Fusion project, go for it! It’s been an inspiring few months and we’re grateful for the widening of our networks and related opportunities. We even learned how to tweet…wonders will never cease!

Dr Steven Keen

skeen@bournemouth.ac.uk

01202 962028

 

Dr Lynne Rutter

lrutter@bournemouth.ac.uk

01202 962019

Yawning In Paris – Dr Simon Thompson

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, EU, Featured academics, Fusion, Grants Academy, Post-award, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Ethics, Research Integritiy, Research news, Research themes

I have taught at Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense on a number of occasions but I continue to be impressed by the enthusiasm and challenging questions the Master’s level students pose. Paris is rich with culture and the education system has many benefits. I am privileged to be part of a growing French research culture that respects skills and knowledge with cutting edge technology in neuroscience.

Sacre Coeur, roof-top; Gare du Nord, r.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eiffel Tower, roof-top.

This complements my experience at Bournemouth University and has enabled me to collaborate on projects that face difficult challenges with respect to ethics and use of expensive technology, namely fMRI scanning. Functional Magnetic Resonance Scanning is notoriously expensive yet the benefits to clinical research are potentially huge.

Modernism - or the Aliens have landed!

 

My study on yawning and cortisol at Bournemouth University [1] has now includes collaboration with three prestigious centres in France: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Amiens University Hospital, University of Picardy Jules Verne.

I hope to continue my Anglo-French meetings with the assistance of the Erasmus Travel Scholarship scheme in the future, as well as with funding from the French Embassy and the French Multiple Sclerosis Society.

 

[1] Thompson, S.B.N., 2014. Yawning, fatigue and cortisol: expanding the Thompson Cortisol Hypothesis. Medical Hypotheses. Doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2014.08.009.

Want to know how you target high impact journals?

BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

My Publishing Experience: Prof. Matthew Bennett

Wed 23rd July 12:30-14:00 Russell Cotes Museum, Bournemouth

On Wednesday 23rd July, Prof. Matthew Bennett will be hosting a Writing Academy lunchbyte session at the Russell Cotes Museum.

In this session, Matthew will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors.  He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations.  Drawing on personal experience he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.   After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch.

To book a place on either of these workshops, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

If you have any questions relating to these sessions then please contact Shelly Anne Stringer

Writing Academy Lunchbyte Sessions

BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing

 

 

 

 

Co-Authorship and How to Write with Authors:

Wed 2nd July 12:30-14:00 The Octagon, Sir Michael Cobham Library, Talbot Campus

Presented by Prof. Mark Hadfield this Writing Academy lunchbyte session will look at co-authorship in general, techniques for writing with authors, how to manage these relationships and dealing with difficult ao-authors. 

After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch.

 

Writing English as a Foreign Language:

Wed 16th July 12:30-14:00 P406, Poole House, Talbot Campus

Presented by Paul Barnes from the library this Writing Academy lunchbyte session will look at:

  • Academic style
  • Levels of formality (register)
  • Grammar – including tense usage, passive voice, prepositions and relative clauses
  • Vocabulary choice

After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch, there is also an option for attendees to book one to one appointments with the speaker to discuss any individual needs they may have.

 

My Publishing Experience: Prof. Matthew Bennett

Wed 23rd July 12:30-14:00 Russell Cotes Museum, Bournemouth

In this Writing Academy Lunchbyte session Prof. Matthew Bennett will talk about his personal publishing experience, his approaches to research and writing, how to develop a publication strategy and the challenges of working with colleagues and dealing with both reviewers and editors.  He will talk about all type of publishing from journal articles, to books via edited compilations.  Drawing on personal experience he will also focus on how you target high impact journals.   After the presentation, attendees are invited to stay and discuss the topic with the speaker over lunch.

If you have any questions relating to these sessions then please contact Shelly Anne Stringer

To book a place on either of these workshops, please email staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

Brush up yer BRIAN

BU research, Guidance, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

BRIANRKEO will be delivering some ‘Brush up yer BRIAN’ training on 19th June 2014 1pm for Media School staff and students. The session will cover:

  • What is BRIAN and why is it important
  • How to set up and maintain your BRIAN profile
  • How to ensure your details are correct
  • How to request a photo is uploaded
  • How BRIAN links to your external staff profile
  • How BRIAN data is used towards BUs KPIs

 To book on please register here.

Firsthand: HEFCE’s Open Access Policy

BU Challenges, BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment

A few weeks back we were privileged to welcome experts on the topic of Open Access to speak at BU in an event well attended by delegates from HEIs across England, Scotland and Wales. The event was enjoyed by all who attended and over a series of blog posts I hope to summarise some of the key points raised by each of the speakers. We also filmed the event so hope to be posting this soon for all to watch, enjoy and comment upon. 

A few days a go, I summarised Alma Swans Introductory Address on ‘The benefits of Open Access’. Today, I look at Ben Johnson’s presentation ‘Open Access in a Post-2014 REF’.

Ben Johnson is a policy adviser at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), where he has worked for the past five years. He has a first class honours degree in music from the University of Southampton, and ten years’ experience working in strategic planning, process improvement and risk management. Since joining HEFCE, Ben has focussed on developing the Council’s thinking in novel, emerging and cross-cutting policy areas. Recently, these have included examining how technological advancements can drive openness in education and research. In 2013, Ben joined the research policy team to lead HEFCE’s work on open access, research information and infrastructure.

In April, HEFCE and the other three UK funding bodies published details of a new policy for open access relating to future research assessments after the current 2014 REF. To read this item in full visit: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2014/news86805.html. In his presentation, Ben talked through this policy and answered questions from delegates throughout the day.

He opened his presentation by outlining Open Access its flavours and routes. GOLD being the journal making the work immediately and freely accessible online under a CC-BY licence and GREEN by the author depositing their work into an intuitional or subject repositories at point of acceptance – further information can be found in earlier blog posts (How to deposit to BURO, Green & Gold).

HEFCEs core principle behind the policy is that outputs submitted to a post-2014
REF should be Open Access and they have three objectives in implementing the policy:

  • Significantly increase the uptake of open access options
  • Protect author choice as much as possible
  • Stimulate the deposit of work in repositories

 

  The minimum requirements of the policy are that:

  1. The final peer-reviewed draft of your paper is deposited in an institutional or subject repository on acceptance
  2. The repository record must be discoverable ASAP
  3. The full text must be accessible ASAP (or once an embargo has elapsed)

 This will apply to all journal articles and most conference proceedings (those with an ISSN), he also stipulated that the maximum embargoes to be allowed will be:

  • REF main panels A and B – 12 months
  • REF main panels C and D – 24 months

An analysis of the REF 2014 submissions found that 96% of outputs could have been Open Access based on this criteria and the remaining 4% would be covered in the exceptions of the policy.

In addition to this, extra credit will be given in the research environment component of the post-2014 REF where an HEI can demonstrate that:

  • Outputs are presented in a form that allows re-use of the work, including via text-mining
  • Outputs not in the scope (books etc.) are made open access

 The prediction is that this will lead to:

  • Significantly greater uptake of open access (even within publishers’ current policies)
  • Increased visibility and usage of repositories
  • Many more immediate deposit mandates
  • Later: author-driven moves to faster and more permissive access
  • Later: open access is ‘solved’ for books etc.

Full slides from Ben Johnson’s presentation at Bournemouth University’s Open Access Event on the 7th May 2014 are available here internally.

If you would like to deposit your full text articles into BURO you can do this easily via BRIAN, full guidance can be found on the staff intranet pages.

BUs Open Access Event

BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing, Research assessment, Research news

Last Wednesday, BU hosted a sector-wide Open Access Event at the EBC. The day was a great success with attendees travelling from universities across the UK to hear keynote speaker Alma Swan and speakers from HEFCE, LSE Impact Blog, PLOS, University of Oxford and BU talk about Open Access, one of the key priorities for the sector at the moment.

Feedback from the event has been overwhelming positive with attendees finding the day extremely useful with lots of interesting discussion throughout the day. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting blogs summarising the key points from each of the presentations so keep your eyes peeled…

An Overview of RCUKs Open Access Policy

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

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’) .

HEFCE’s Open Access Policy for the next REF Published

BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Publishing, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research news, Training

HEFCE and the other three UK funding bodies have published details of a new policy for open access relating to future research assessments after the current 2014 REF.

The policy describes new eligibility requirements for outputs submitted to the post-2014 REF (commonly referred to REF2020). These requirements apply to all journal articles and conference proceedings accepted for publication after 1 April 2016. They do not apply to monographs, other long-form publications, creative or non-text outputs, or data.

 open access logo, Public Library of ScienceThe requirements state that peer-reviewed manuscripts must be deposited in an institutional (BURO) or subject repository on acceptance for publication. The title and author of these deposits, and other descriptive information, must be discoverable straight away by anyone with a search engine. The manuscripts must then be accessible for anyone to read and download once any embargo period has elapsed.

There are limited exceptions to the policy, where depositing and arranging access to the manuscript is not achievable.

This policy was developed following an extensive two-stage consultation during 2013, to which they received over 460 written responses.

 To read this item in full visit: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2014/news86805.html

If you would like to know more about Open Access, Bournemouth University are hosting asector-wide Open Access Event on the 7th May with Ben Johnson from HEFCE presenting on the policy, places are limited so if you’re interested, please register here.

In the meantime, if you would like to deposit your full text articles into BURO you can do this easily via BRIAN, full guidance can be found on the staff intranet pages. Alternatively, there are two BRIAN training sessions scheduled which you can book on to here.

 

How to Manage Your Research Data

BU research, Guidance, Info Days, Post-award, Training

Research Councils and funding bodies are increasingly requiring evidence of adequate and appropriate provisions for data management and curation in new grant funding applications. In July, the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) will be holding two half day workshops which will provide an introduction to research data management and curation, the range of activities and roles that should be considered when planning and implementing new projects, and an overview of tools that can assist with curation activities.

 The Learning Objectives of the workshops will be to:

  • understand funders’ requirements for data management and sharing
  • learn how research data management and curation can safeguard research outputs and increase citations
  • identify the processes and activities involved in good practice for research data management
  • be aware of the free services and tools available

 There will be two workshops each pitched to a slightly different audience on the dates below:

  • 2nd July 2014 2-5pm 
  • 3rd July 9-12pm  

Further information can be found on the Staff Intranet. If you are interested in attending, please book on by emailing staffdevelopment@bournemouth.ac.uk

 

Money Available for Open Access Publishing

BU research, Post-award, Publishing

Back in April 2011 we launched the BU Open Access Publication Fund. This is a dedicated central budget that has been launched in response to, and in support of, developments in research communication and publication trends. The fund is also to support research in complying with some of the major funding bodies who have introduced open access publishing requirements as a condition of their grants.

The fund is available for use by any BU author ready to submit a completed article for publication who wishes to make their output freely and openly accessible.

If you are interested in applying to the fund then you need to email the BU Open Access mailbox with the following information:

  • Name of the open access publication
  • Confirmation this will be a peer reviewed paper
  • A short justification (1 paragraph) of why it is beneficial for your research to be published in this particular open access publication
  • The cost of the open access publication
  • Likely publication date
  • Likely REF Unit of Assessment (UOA)
  • A copy of the paper

If you have any questions about the Fund then please direct them to Shelly via email.

Further information: BU Open Access Fund policy