RCUK Executive Response to the Burgess Review

As expected the Research Councils UK Executive has responded to the independent Burgess Review of its Open Access policy that we blogged in April.  

The Executive accepts and will act on all the recommendations.

Its most immediate response is to explore incorporating Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCiD) in its systems and to strongly encourage institutions and publishers to do the same.

It will also establish a joint practitioners working group made of of staff working on Open Access policy within institutions that will include representatives from learned societies and publishers. It will work on policy expression, communication and data collection and is due to meet for the first time in Autumn 2015.

Detail from cover: Review of the implementation of the RCUK Policy on Open Access
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Key responses

• Explore sources to track compliance data in consultation with the practitioner group.
• Work to reduce the burden of data collection on the administration of the block grant.
• Improve communication around the policy.
• Promote the mixed model of Open Access and researcher choice.
• Clarify the policy on embargo periods, the CC-BY licence requirement and promote understanding of different licence types.
• Share best practice in policy implementation across the sector.
• Consider the issues around block grant allocation within HEI departments and disciplines.

Echoing the Burgess Review, the next independent review will be postponed for one year to allow extra time to gather enough data for an evidence base.

If you are a St Andrews researcher and need help to comply with RCUK's Open Access policy or to access the block grant to pay an article processing charge, please email open-access-support@st-andrews.ac.uk.