Grantholders e-newsletter

Special edition, November 2007

1. Open access and UK PubMed Central one year on

"Ensuring that the outputs of research are freely available to all is the best way to maximise their utility. Open access is good for science, the research community and mankind." Sir John Sulston

1 October 2006 marked an important milestone in advancing our commitment to supporting researchers when we introduced a new grant condition to ensure that the research we fund is made freely available to all. This special edition of the grantholders newsletter revisits the open access policy one year on and provides useful reminders and information on how to comply with the open access requirements.

2. Why introduce an open access policy?

One of our six strategic aims is facilitating research, showing we are committed to enabling the best conditions for research and sharing knowledge, for the benefit of researchers worldwide.

Our open access position statement supports this and ensures that the outputs of the work we fund - research articles in peer-reviewed journals - are disseminated widely and made freely available.

As a Trust-funded researcher, this policy will benefit you in two ways. Firstly, your research papers will be given a much wider form of dissemination - anyone with internet access will be able to read them without restriction. Secondly, as a reader of research you will increasingly be able to access the full text of all the research published in your area, not just the research available to you via the subscriptions your institution offers.

The Human Genome Project conclusively demonstrated the benefits of sharing information in an open and unrestricted way. The Trust now wants to extend this approach to research published in peer-reviewed journals.

Read our open access position statement for further information.

3. Reminder for all Wellcome Trust grantholders

Grantholders are reminded that all research papers funded in whole or in part by the Wellcome Trust must be made freely accessible through PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) as soon as possible, and in any event within six months of publication.

Further information can be found in the authors' guide and FAQ.

4. How do I comply with the policy?

There are two ways in which you can comply with the grant condition to ensure that your Wellcome Trust supported research is made freely accessible via PMC and UKPMC. These are:

1. Publish in an open access journal (e.g. 'Nucleic Acids Research', 'PLoS', 'BMC') or a journal that offers a hybrid open access option. Publishers that offer a Wellcome-compliant hybrid option include Elsevier, Springer, OUP, Blackwell and CUP.

When publishing in a journal that uses the open access model please note that the publisher will take responsibility for depositing the final version of the article in PMC/UKPMC.

2. Publish in any journal that allows you to self-archive the author manuscript (including all changes that arise from the peer-review process) and make that available within six months of publication.

When publishing in a journal that uses this model please note that the corresponding author is responsible for depositing the manuscript in PMC/UKPMC. Papers can be deposited using the UK Manuscript Submission System .

Use the Sherpa/RoMEO database to determine whether the journal you wish to seek publication in has a Wellcome-compliant publishing policy.

Read a brief visual overview [PDF 870KB] of how researchers can comply with our policy.

5. What are the cost implications?

The Wellcome Trust recognises the value that publishers add to the research process and acknowledge that the costs associated with publishing are legitimate research costs. The Wellcome Trust will therefore meet the costs associated with open access publishing.

There are two mechanisms by which the Trust will reimburse universities for publishing costs:

1. block grants to a number of universities

2. supplementation of individual research grants (where the institution does not have a block grant).

Funding is also available where grants have terminated.

For information about reclaiming open access fees, please contact your university research office.

Further details can be found in the authors' guide and FAQ .

6 . UK PubMed Central

UK PubMed Central was established by the Wellcome Trust and a number of other principal funders of biomedical and health research in the UK (see UKPMC Funders Group ).

UKPMC is based on PubMed Central in the US and aims to create a stable, permanent and free-to-access digital archive of the full text, peer-reviewed research publications (and datasets) that arise from research funded by the Wellcome Trust and other members of the UKPMC Funders Group.

As part of the UKPMC service it is now possible to find details of over 17500 grants, awarded to researchers who have been funded by one or more of the UKPMC Funders Group. This tool can help researchers identify colleagues who are working on similar research projects. Use the service point to look up a grant.

Over the next few weeks you will be contacted by the British Library, which is running the UKPMC service on behalf of the Funders Group, and asked to participate in a survey to help plan the ongoing development of UKPMC. The Trust encourages you to participate in this activity and thus help ensure that we develop UKPMC so that it meets the needs of the UK biomedical research community.

7. Recent open access highlights

Publishers and funders reach agreement on open access and re-use rights (press release)
Elsevier develop an open access licence that allows researchers to undertake text and data-mining services.

8. Further information and help

You can find more information about open access on the Wellcome Trust website.

Alternatively, if you have any questions about the policy, please email us: openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk.