Slides presented at the FP7 Post-Grant OA Pilot national webinar for the UK on Jan 19th, 2015. The presentation provides a description of the funding initiative and its results so far, making emphasis on its current implementation in the UK. A demo is also provided on how the system for collecting and processing funding requests works.

1. The EC FP7 Post-Grant OA Pilot
Implementation in the UK
Pablo de Castro,
Catherine Sharp,
Open Access Project Officer, LIBER
Open Access Funding Manager, University College London

2. What is this FP7 Post-Grant Pilot?
• The EC FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot will provide funding to cover the
OA publishing fees for publications arising from completed FP7 projects
• 4 million euros are made available by the EC to fund the OA
“post-grant” publications of over 8,000 completed FP7 projects
• The Pilot will last for a maximum of two years (i.e. until Apr 30th, 2017) or
until its budget is exhausted

3. Requirements for Eligibility
• The FP7 project should have finished by the time the funding is requested, but no longer
than two years ago;
• A maximum of three publications will be funded per eligible FP7 project as a means to
ensure a fair distribution of the funding across projects;
• Publications eligible for funding must be peer-reviewed;
• Funding requests must be submitted once the publication has been accepted;
• Publications submitted to hybrid journals will not be funded, but only those accepted at
fully Open Access journals;
• Funding caps of €2,000 for research articles and €6,000 for monographs apply for this
Pilot;
• The final version of the funded output must be deposited in an OpenAIRE-compliant Open
Access repository.
Full Pilot policy guidelines available at: https://www.openaire.eu/postgrant/fp7-post-grant/pilot

4. 4
Approved funding requests: evolution

5. 5
Granted Funding Requests by Country

6. 6
Granted Funding Requests by Country
• arising geographic bias in
funding distribution across
countries
• dissemination activities focused
on areas of low activity
• it takes time to collect funding
requests from researchers

7. 7
FP7 Post-Grant Pilot-funded Publishers
• Clear impact of a no-hybrid policy
• Average APC fee: €1420 (as of Nov 30th
, 2015)

8. 8
Granted Funding Requests in the UK

9. 9
Granted Funding Requests in the UK
Caveat: Assigning funding
request to countries is tricky
when it's FP7 project-based:
funding is often being granted to
projects coordinated in the UK
via funding requests granted to
researchers and institutions in
other countries

10. 10
Some Issues
• FP7 Post-Grant Open Access Pilot "competing" with other pots of money
from UK funders and institutions
• No-hybrid vs hybrid-policy
• Issues with reimbursements: VAT charges
"FP7 Post-Grant OA Pilot report 6 months into the initiative", https://blogs.openaire.eu/?p=611

11. 11
Applying for Funding: the System
System requests information on:
1. Researcher (at registration time)
2. FP7 project
3. Publication (article/journal/APC)
4. Accounting (invoicing)
An important recommendation:
Please submit your request upon
completion of the publication data without
waiting for an invoice to arrive

12. 12
User Registration with the System
https://postgrantoapilot.openaire.eu/#register

13. 13
User Registration with the System (II)
• “Researcher” is default role – any other one
needs to be approved by the system moderator
• “Library Staff” user role common for Libraries,
Research Offices and any other institutional unit
• “Library Staff” users can see any funding request
submitted from the institution
• “Library Staff” users can submit requests on behalf
of their institutional researchers

14. 14
Applying for Funding: Researcher
Both at registration and funding request
time, it's very important to select the
affiliation from the drop-down menu –
this will allow the system to identify the
institution's name as it's coded into the
EC CORDA database and couple it to
the eligible FP7 projects

15. 15
Applying for Funding: FP7 Project
• Project's end-date the key field for
eligibility purposes
• Once the project acronym or grant
number is entered the rest of the fields
are auto-completed

16. 16
Applying for Funding: Publication (I)
• If DOI is resolvable against the CrossRef
API, all metadata will automatically auto-
complete
• Include at least one email address
in the author list

17. 17
Applying for Funding: Publication (II)
Acceptance date the key field for eligibility
of a publication
Rest of the fields are optional except the
journal title, which the system will again
try to auto-complete

18. 18
FP7 Post-Grant OA Pilot-funded titles
List of funded fully OA journals is kept
updated
Mechanism to warn about predatory
publishers currently being set

19. 19
Applying for Funding: Accounting (I)
Two-stage information collection: invoice
and requested APC fee
The whole upper part of the form (invoice)
can be left blank if no invoice is yet
available at post-ms-acceptance funding
request time –
it will be completed later
When available, invoice issued to Athena
Research Centre needs to be uploaded
into the system
For a reimbursement, a 2-page
reimbursement invoice is required, see
FAQ at http://bit.ly/1Zl7Oh0

20. 20
Applying for Funding: Accounting (II)
If available in the embedded database, the
system will show the nominal APC fee –
the user must provide the actual value
on the right-hand side fields
If the APC fee is above the funding cap for
an article (EUR 2,000), the FP7 Post-
Grant OA Pilot will provide its
maximum funding, but the default 100%
will need to be lowered and an
additional funder included
Alternatively, a EUR 2,000 funding request
can be issued, keeping the 100% rate

21. 21
After filling in a funding request
1. Funding request is submitted
2. Moderator checks it and conditionally approves it if eligible
3. Automatic notification collected by requestor
4. Automatic notification collected by project coordinator for validation
5. Request stays in "conditionally approved" status until invoice addressed to Athena
Research Centre is uploaded
6. If invoice is valid (VAT number must be included), the request is formally approved
7. Notification for formal approval sent to the requestor
8. Invoice processed and paid by OpenAIRE accounting office in Athens
9. Bank transfer receipt uploaded into the system by the accounting office
10. Paid request notification sent out to requestor

22. 22
APC-equivalent Funding Mechanism
Instead of APCs, this APC-equivalent funding mechanism for APC-free OA journals will fund
technical improvements in the publishing workflows at eligible journals.
Two main challenges to tackle:
Defining the technical and administrative mechanisms for providing the funding
Making sure eligible researchers will submit their work to these journals

23. www.openaire.eu
@openaire_eu
facebook.com/groups/openaire
linkedin.com/groups/OpenAIRE-3893548
Thank you!
pablo.decastro@kb.nl
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6300-1033
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