Trust’s £1 million commitment to open access

14 October 2008

Trust-funded researchers receive more support than ever before to fulfil their grant conditions and make their research open access.

For 2008-2009, the Trust has committed over £1 million to meet open access fees. Today, on Open Access Day, researchers are reminded that they are required to make any Trust-funded publications available through PubMed Central (PMC) and UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) as soon as possible and, in any event, within six months of the journal publisher’s official date of final publication.

Introduced in October 2006, the Trust’s open access policy ensures that all Trust-funded research is made freely available online. This, in turn, means that the research supported by the Trust is reached, read and built upon as much as possible, fostering a richer research culture.

The Trust will cover open access charges, and encourages its researchers to select the ‘author pays’ option where available. Papers published under this model are automatically deposited in PMC and UKPMC by the publisher - thus removing the burden on the author - and are licensed in a way that facilitates re-use, subject to proper attribution.

For more information on how to make your Trust-funded research open access, see the Trust’s position statement on open access and the authors’ guide and FAQs.