Rights Retention and Funder Open Access Policy Requirements

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Several funders are revising Open Access (OA) requirements for peer reviewed research and Swansea University authors are encouraged to familiarise themselves with any OA policy that applies to their work.

For all disciplines, funded research articles need to be open access immediately upon publication via the green or gold OA route to improve the availability and impact of research .This ambitious change is part of a transitional shift towards sustainable and equitable open access. Wellcome and cOAlition S Funders endorsed this policy in 2021 and further funder alignment is imminent:

2022:
UKRI, AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC. (From 1 April 2022 – journal articles/reviews/conference proceedings with ISSN, or publishing platform)
NIHR, National Institute for Health Research (From 1 June 2022)
CRUK, Cancer Research UK (From 1 January 2022) 

2024:
UKRI (From 1 January 2024 – monographs/ book chapters/ edited collections) 

What is the Rights Retention strategy?

The Rights Retention Strategy (RRS) devised by cOAlition S has been introduced to ensure that funded research is subject to an open licence that allows researchers to retain the right to use and share their work.

Rights Retention Strategy One Page by cOAlitionS

There are two routes to funder compliance: 

1. Gold open access route 1: final published version of record (VOR) document on a journal website or publishing platform with a Creative Commons CC-BY attribution licence or equivalent*.
2. Green self-archiving route 2: researchers publish in a hybrid (subscription + open access) or subscription journal. When an author submits a paper using this route,  the manuscript should include a statement indicating that the author will apply a Creative Commons attribution (CC-BY) licence or equivalent* to any author accepted manuscript (AAM) resulting from peer-review. The AAM will be released in the repository with no embargo and means that your article is freely available to read without a paywall upon publication. Green open access is the preferred route for making outputs available as it is cost free.

* Open government licence (OGL) to any AAM subject to Crown Copyright. By exception some funders permit Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND).

Publishers have been notified of the rights retention strategy for self-archiving in repositories by the large funders. However, there are some publishers like Springer Nature that will not permit the AAM to be shared or distributed under a creative commons licence when self-archiving papers published in subscription journals. They expect authors to agree to a publishing licence that includes an embargo period. If a publisher refuses to honour rights retention you may wish to seek an alternative publication venue or route to publication in order to meet funder open access requirements.

Journal Checker Tool: https://journalcheckertool.org/
Add journal title + Funder name + Swansea University to view Plan S compliance status.
Sherpa Fact is also available: https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/fact/
Add journal title + Funder name
You will also find a list of funder open access policy conditions on our research handbook.

What does an author need to do to ensure funder open access compliance?

Route 1. Open Access Publisher Agreements (gold) 

Swansea University has purchased agreements with some publishers to enable corresponding authors to publish their work open access at no additional cost. A list of transitional agreements (TA) is available from the Effective Research Publishing Handbook. These include selected titles from CUP, OUP, IOPScience, BMJ, PLOS, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Wiley. We also have membership schemes for discounted fees with SAGE, MDPI and ACS. By April, the current Swansea University UKRI open access block grant webpage for financial support, will be updated for hybrid journal payment applications that are not part of a Swansea University transitional publisher agreement. We can also support publication in other fully open access journals and platforms. For journals that do not meet the sector requirements for transition to open access authors will need to use alternative funding for payment of open access fees.

We emphasise that authors can still choose to publish in hybrid journals that are not part of a transitional agreement, or where their research organisation is not a participant in an existing transitional agreement. Authors can be compliant with UKRI’s open access policy either via self-archiving in a repository (where a journal accepts submissions acknowledging UKRI) or by using other funding sources for article processing charges. 

UKRI Open Access Policy – explanation of policy changes 08/2021

Route 2. Open Access via self-archiving in a repository (green)

• Upon submission, the author informs the publisher that the accepted manuscript (AAM) arising from the submission is licensed CC-BY in accordance with the grant’s open access condition.  You can use this form of words in the acknowledgment section.
  
  “This research was funded, in whole or in part, by [Organisation name, Grant #]. A CC-BY or equivalent licence is applied to [the AAM / the VoR] arising from this submission, in accordance with the grant’s open access conditions’’

• Upon acceptance following peer review, deposit the AAM in the Research Information System (RIS). RIS will be updated to capture rights retention activity and the AAM or VOR where the publisher permits will be released in Cronfa with no embargo upon first publication.
• UKRI require a data access statement even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.
• Your funder may require a Europe PubMed Central (EuropePMC) deposit. Most publishers complete this step automatically for biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding.

Key Takeaway
Route 1 – Check if there is an institutional TA publisher deal available to remove open access costs.
Route 2 – Use the rights retention statement at the point of submission. The elimination of embargoes and the use of open licensing will enable self-archived accepted manuscripts to be freely available in the repository upon publication.

Book Publishing

• There is an expectation that UKRI researchers will make monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from 1 January 2024 open access within 12 months of publication. Some exceptions apply (Point 17. UKRI)
• A CC-BY attribution license is required unless an exemption has been obtained in writing from UKRI to use an alternative creative commons license.
• A ring-fenced block grant will be provided to the sector to support UKRI monograph publishing.
• Policy exceptions apply to scholarly editions, textbooks and trade books.

Register for a short information session.
The focus will be on changes to the UKRI policy.

• Tuesday 8^th February at 2pm via Zoom: https://swansea-uk.libcal.com/event/3827560
• Thursday 17^th February at 10am via Zoom: https://swansea-uk.libcal.com/event/3827562   
  We will be running additional sessions throughout March and April (dates tbc).

• Quick Links
• UKRI Open Access Policy, April 2022
• NIHR Open Access Policy June 2022
• Wellcome Open Access Policy 2021
• cOAlition S FAQs
• cOAlition S Handout Flyer
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Swansea University Publisher Agreements and Memberships
• Swansea University UKRI Open Access Financial Support
• Swansea University Data Support Services

Contact Caroline Rauter or Ellie Downes via LibraryResearchSupport@swansea.ac.uk if you would like to discuss Right’s Retention or your funder’s Open Access policy.

Visit our Website

UKRI Open Access Policy Update

UKRI Logo

The UKRI Open Access (OA) Policy sets out the requirements for publications that acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. The new OA policy requires immediate open access to be the default for research articles. This positive change will ensure that publicly funded research is openly available at the point of publication. 

The new policy comes into effect for research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022 and is similar to the cOAlition S and Wellcome open access initiatives. In-scope monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024 are included for the first time. 

UKRI will provide a £46.7 million Open Access block grant to support implementation of this policy however, the ring-fenced budget for OA monograph publishing is not significant at £3.5 million for the sector. UKRI will release further information on the block grant and conditions of funding in December 2021 and in 2022 for monographs. Swansea University Library is responsible for supporting Faculties to achieve compliance with the URKRI Open Access policy and receives the block grant to support researchers.  

Requirements of the new policy 

For peer-reviewed research articles, reviews and conference papers with an ISSN, key requirements include: 

• immediate open access for research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022.  
• articles can be open through an open access journal or platform using the ‘gold’ route, or via ‘green’ self-archiving of the author accepted manuscript (AAM) in an institutional or subject repository without an embargo period. 
• authors can only access UKRI funds to publish in a gold open access journal or in a subscription “hybrid” journal covered by a JISC transitional agreement.  
• a  Creative Commons CC-BY licence or CC-BY-ND (by exception) is required, including a requirement to notify the publisher of this licensing at the point of submission. UKRI provide rights retention strategy (RRS) boilerplate text for ‘green’ self-archiving purposes. Using a rights retention strategy is a cultural shift for authors and will be a funder requirement. 

‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘CC BY-ND public copyright licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’ 

• articles must include a Data Access Statement, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. 

Key requirements of the new policy for monographs published on or after 1 January 2024 include: 

• the final version of a publication or accepted manuscript are made open access via a publisher’s website, platform or repository, within a maximum of 12 months of publication or the accepted manuscript must be deposited in a repository. 
• a  Creative Commons CC-BY licence is preferred, but NC and ND licences are permitted for monographs. 
• UKRI’s licensing requirements do not apply to any materials included within a long-form output that are provided by third-party copyright holders – see the policy exceptions. 

Preprints are not included within the new policy but the use of pre-print services across disciplines is encouraged. A statement on pre-prints is expected at some point. 

Read the new UKRI open access policy
Read ‘Shaping our open access policy’ by UKRI

Read the cOAlition S ‘Primer on the Rights Retention Strategy by Stephen J Elgin. 

The Library Research Support team will be adding policy updates to the Effective Research Publishing Handbook as they become available. Details of JISC transitional publishing agreements applicable to Swansea University researchers are also available from this resource. Faculty administrators and directors are encouraged to make contact for further guidance to ensure that researchers are able to comply with the new funder requirements.

Contact ISS-Research@swansea.ac.uk / openaccess@swansea.ac.uk

RCUK – Strategic Vision 2011-2015

Research Councils UK have published their Strategic Vision This document sets out the themes and priorities for 2011 to 2015.  It addresses:

• Research to address societal changes
  • Digital Economy, Energy, Global Food Security, Global Uncertainities, Lifelong Health & Wellbeing, Living with Environmental Change.
• RCUK’s relationship with HE sector
  • Wakeham Review & full economic costings; managing demand for research funding;  allocating funding to research that addresses strategic priorities; encouraging the sharing of estates costs and the sharing of resources…
• Research
  • Funding people & projects; training for a highly-skilled workforce, economic growth and sustainability of the research base; facilities and infrastructure.
• Impact
  • Increasing our economic and societal benefits; choosing our research priorities; embedding impact; the evidence base of impact.
• Partnerships
  • Working with the Technology Strategy Board; working with government departments; global partnerships; partnerships with society.

Invest in your libraries to help researchers

A new research report University Investment in the Library, Phase II: An International Study of the Librarys Value to the Grants Process suggests that there is a direct correlation between funding spent on university libraries and successful research funding applications.  The report is available online, or you can read the article in the THES.

ESRC launches Peer Review College

The ESRC has announced that it has established a college of peer reviewers to provide expert advice and assessment of proposals to its programmes.

The college consists of around 1,800 experts from the UK and overseas, from Higher Education and from the private, government and independent sectors.

More details are available on the ESRC website.

Blue skies? Willets, the REF, Research Impact and Research Funding

Today, 9th July, the universities and science minister, David Willetts, in a speech to the Royal Institution, confirmed  that the REF is to be postponed for a year.  The problem with measuring economic impact of research would appear to be the primary reason. He has stressed the need to find a reliable measure of impact that would find consensus within the academic community. However, he also expressed the view that the significance of scientific research could not always be measured by its short-term economic impact, as with the unexpected benefits of blue skies research. “”The surprising paths which serendipity takes us down is a major reason why we need to think harder about impact.” Over the next year, the lessons of the pilot exercise and the experiences of other countries (e.g. Star Metrics in the USA) will be drawn upon.

Willetts rejected the previous government’s thinking on funding of scientific research and innovation.

You’re supposed to put money into university-based scientific research, which leads to patents and then spinout companies that secure venture capital backing. The mature business provides tax revenues for the Government, jobs for the local area, a nice profit for the university.

Yet, he said, on average only 3% of university income ever came from commercialisation of  intellectual property.

There were better ways of “harvesting the benefits from research”. Amongst these he said he favoured “clusters”, which he defined as “low-risk environment for high-risk activity”, citing the example of computer games and media companies based around Abertay University.

Government backing for research does make economic sense, he said, and the Research Councils’ funding of scientific research was effective in “generating wider benefits across the economy as a whole”. There may be cuts ahead, but essentially the dual funding system was working and he supported the Haldane principle.

In terms of his own thinking on policy for supporting and developing the research base, he believes that:

1. Publicly funded research facilities ( Government support for “shared facilities – research platforms if you like – which private companies could not develop on their own”)
2. Public procurement contracts given to innovative SMEs (“A purchasing contract can be as effective a way to get money to an innovative small business as a grant or a capital investment: this is particularly important at times when banks are so reluctant to lend.”
3. Public competitions for new technologies (“And it need not be Government which sets the prize or the challenge – it can happen in marketplaces on the web too.”)

You can read the speech in full on the BIS website or read reports from THE & The Engineer.

Royal Society makes its case for Government investment in Scientific Research

In a wide-ranging report,The Scientific Century: Securing Our Future Prosperity, the Royal Society makes its case for government investment in scientific research and improving education in the sciences.

Warning of the dangers of any crude assessment of research impact, the report nonetheless regards recent clarifications from HEFCE regarding this element of the Research Excellence Framework (REF) as being reassuring.  It goes on to warn against the effects of any cuts in funding to academic scientific research, with a reminder how cuts in the mid-1980s led to researchers struggling “to remain at the cutting edge of their disciplines, using old equipment that they could not afford to replace”.  Investing in scientific research now, they argue, is vital: “Science and innovation are investments that are essential to short-term recovery and, more importantly, to long-term prosperity and growth.”

Recommendations of the report align strategically with investment in: interdisciplinary research (including a call for a reform of research funding and assessment in relation to this); overseas collaboration; improved skills training (including ‘transferrable skills’) for PhD students in the sciences; and a call to create “strong global challenge research programmes, led by RCUK, to align scientific, commercial and public interests”.

The report can be read in full on the Royal Society website at:http://royalsociety.org/the-scientific-century/

HEFCE publishes RAND Europe report on Research Impact Methodologies

News that HEFCE have just published Capturing Research Impacts: A review of international practice is of particular interest for Swansea University since we will be participating in the HEFCE Pilot Exercise on Research Impact.

This is the report Hefce commissioned from RAND Europe to bring together knowledge gained from international experiences in assessing research impact. The review will help inform development of this new aspect of the REF.  Notably, the review “suggests that the work of the Australian RQF Working Group on Impact Assessment might provide a basis for developing an approach to impact in the REF”. (See previous entries on this blog regarding the RQF.)

RAND Europe has already established experience in this area. See for example, Exploring the impact of arthritis research

Full report and executive summary are available at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/rdreports/2009/rd23_09/

Funding the Research Base – 1994 Group Policy Report

Last month the 1994 Group’s policy report,  “The importance of the HE research base in addressing major global challenges and ensuring the UK’s future prosperity”.  was published.  The report argues in favour of the dual funding system and warns against spreading QR funding too thinly across the HE sector.  Several case studies are provided to illustrate the impact of QR funded research in tackling “global challenges”. Whilst acknowledging the need for collaboration and building links with business and industry, the report makes clear that the research base in the Arts & Humanities must not be ignored.

Investment must be made in new ideas and world leading research in the arts, humanities and social sciences, in addition to STEM subjects and medicine. Innovation draws on the entirety of the research base and, accordingly, the whole academy must be sustainable financially.

There is also a warning against Hefce’s new REF proposals placing too much emphasis on economic impact of research:

As part of REF, it is also important that the Funding Councils recognise the widest range of impacts that excellent research might have across different disciplinary areas, rather than focusing overly on economic impact interpreted in its narrowest sense.

The report urges the Government to “develop a national research policy that will target funding and support mechanisms” and makes the following recommendations: 

•  Increase Government investment in research on a longer-term basis to enable universities to retain the scope to respond flexibly and rapidly to emerging challenges. 
• Protect and enhance QR funding to allow universities autonomy and the capacity to invest in new and emerging areas, grow and support new talent, protect declining but important subjects, and initiate collaborations with new academic and business partners. 
• Distribute QR funding according to excellence, while ensuring critical mass in world class research areas within our research intensive universities.
• Support increased collaboration between universities and businesses at a regional, national and global level to build on signifi cant advances made on enterprise development that have been enabled by the Higher Education Innovation Fund
• Complement investment in STEM subjects and medicine with continuing investment in new ideas and world-leading research in arts, humanities and social sciences, as innovation draws on the entirety of the research base. 
• Ensure our future intellectual sustainability by providing the necessary resources to train the world-leading researchers of the future.

The report, and several case studies illustrative of the impact of QR funded research in meeting global challenges,  are available from: http://www.1994group.ac.uk/researchenterpriseexcellence.php 

 

 

RCUK Framework for the Future : Excellence with Impact

On the 20th October, the RCUK launched its Framework document. It aims to show how publicly funded research enables the UK to have a “productive economy, healthy society and contribute to a sustainable world”. The basis of the framework rests upon these “three mutually supportive areas”. The document can be downloaded from the website and there are also links to case studies and an interview with Professor Alan J Thorpe, Chair of RCUK.