1. Communicating OA
Policies: the research
councils' perspective
Pathways to OA advocacy workshop
20 March 2015
Mark Thorley
NERC / RCUK
mark.thorley@nerc.ac.uk
@MarkRThorley

2. Research Councils UK
£3B

3. Exam question ……
• Reflect on experience of communicating RCUK
OA policy.
• What are the lessons learned?
• And, what are the next steps?
• All in 15 minutes!

4. 2014 Independent Review
• Report to be published week beginning 23 March.
• RCUK will formally respond to recommendations.
• Key issues from the evidence provided to RCUK:
– The administrative cost of implementing OA;
– Confusion and miscommunication over many
aspects of policy and its implementation;
– Many institutions don’t have data on publications
they produce.

5. Why ‘open’ ?
• Public good agenda.
• Support for innovation and growth:
– remove barriers to access;
– get the stuff out there and get it used.
• Research transparency and integrity.
• Expectations of a digital age.
• Data intensive science.

6. The challenges of research in a
digital age
Life was so much
simpler in the
‘good old days’
Laurentius de Voltolina - Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemannia
See: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg

7. The digital & networked world is a
real game changer
• Expectations and opportunities have changed.
• We are in a world where:
– The expectation is ‘I want it now and I want it for
free’;
– Anybody can ‘publish’ anything on the web;
– People expect to develop services based on other
people’s material;
– Experts have to earn trust.
• Funders are responding to these drivers.

8. The experience of communicating
• It was never going to be easy:
– A major policy change impacting on all researchers
and research institutions and which was by no
means universally welcomed.
• The drivers for OA have evolved so changing the
emphasis in our communications.
• 'One long argument'.

9. The challenge of communicating
• A dynamic environment with evolving policy and
guidance, eg:
– Switch from all research papers arising from RC
funding to papers acknowledging RC funding;
– Flexibility on block-grant spend required revised
compliance targets.
• Constraints and balance against external drivers.
• Keeping multiple (and not always complementary)
stakeholders on board.

10. Policy vs transitional flexibility
The PA Decision Tree

11. Policy vs transitional flexibility
• The PA Decision Tree!
• Embargo periods – was that 6, 12 or 24 months?
• What can the block grant be spent on?
• Compliance targets – 45% of what?

12. Confusion and miscommunication
What
exactly is
the RCUK
OA policy?
Is this
journal
compliant?
Why is RCUK
different from the
REF policy?
How can the
block grant be
used?
What
monitoring
data are
required?

13. Next steps
• Recommendations from the review.
• Issues to consider:
– How do we bring the community with us?
– Work with the sector to refine communications.
– Look for joint solutions to problems.

14. Open data
AND
the next
big challenge
for research
institutions

15. QUESTIONS ?