Position statement in support of open and unrestricted access to published research

Last updated: February 2008

The mission of the Wellcome Trust is to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. The main output of this research is new ideas and knowledge, which the Trust expects its researchers to publish in high-quality, peer-reviewed journals.

The Wellcome Trust believes that maximising the distribution of these papers - by providing free, online access - is the most effective way of ensuring that the research we fund can be accessed, read and built upon. In turn, this will foster a richer research culture.

The Wellcome Trust therefore supports unrestricted access to the published output of research as a fundamental part of its charitable mission and a public benefit to be encouraged wherever possible.

Specifically, the Wellcome Trust:

• expects authors of research papers to maximise the opportunities to make their results available for free
• requires electronic copies of any research papers that have been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, and are supported in whole or in part by Wellcome Trust funding, to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UK PMC) as soon as possible and in any event within six months of the journal publisher's official date of final publication
• will provide grantholders with additional funding, through their institutions, to cover open access charges, where appropriate, in order to meet the Trust's requirements
• encourages - and where it pays an open access fee, requires - authors and publishers to license research papers such that they may be freely copied and re-used (for example for text and data-mining purposes), provided that such uses are fully attributed
• affirms the principle that it is the intrinsic merit of the work, and not the title of the journal in which an author's work is published, that should be considered in making funding decisions.

Specific details of authors' obligations, and general background information and guidance relating to this position statement, can be found in the Grant Conditions and authors’ guide and FAQ. Information for publishers can be found in the publishers’ guide and FAQ.

The Trust will continue to keep this policy under review.