Open access to publicly funded research

We are committed to supporting increased public access to research findings.

It is our policy that all research arising from HEFCE funding should be as widely and freely accessible as the available channels for dissemination permit.

We believe this will:

enable the prompt and widespread dissemination of research findings
benefit both the efficiency of the research process and economic growth driven by publicly funded research
increase public understanding of research.

Consultation

In July 2012, we published a statement on our intentions for implementing our policy on open access, in which we set out our intention to consult the sector.

We have now issued a letter, ‘Open Access and Submission of Outputs to a post-2014 REF’, as the first step of our planned two-stage consultation process on implementing open access.

The letter, published below, seeks broad advice from the sector to inform the development of our implementation proposals.

The deadline for responses to the letter was 25 March 2013. Anyone with an interest in open-access publishing was invited to respond.

The outcomes of the first step of this consultation will be used to help develop full proposals for the implementation of our open-access policy, incorporating the advice we receive. We will issue a formal consultation on the developed proposals later in 2013.