Ten organisations from the UK's higher education and research sector have joined forces to form the UK Open Access Implementation Group, which will seek to drive the implementation of open access (OA) in the nation. This would be both in terms of policy and promoting a deeper understanding of the opportunities that OA is seen to offer for the UK to maintain its world-wide reputation and impact.
OA is part of a movement toward more openness and transparency in the public sector and in universities. It is said to promise significant benefits for universities and the UK economy as papers, educational resources and data are more widely available to support teaching, research and innovation.
While the adoption of OA is growing, some researchers and institutions still worry that it amounts to a "Robin Hood" approach that gives away research freely. The evidence, however, shows that opening up access to research outputs provides substantial gains for both. These gains vary across an increasingly differentiated sector but, to be more fully realised, policy and infrastructure need to be better coordinated across the sector. This is the role the UK Open Access Implementation Group plans to take on.
At the moment the group consists of senior representatives of two UK universities (Edinburgh and Salford), Universities UK, Research Libraries UK, the Society of College, National and University Libraries, JISC, the UK Research Councils, Wellcome Trust, the Association of Research Managers and Administrators UK, and OA publisher Public Library of Science. It will coordinate evidence, policies, systems, advice and guidance, to make OA an easy choice for authors and one that benefits all universities. The group has asked JISC to map out a programme of practical work to make progress in these areas.
Meeting at the Wellcome Trust and chaired by Martin Hall, Vice Chancellor at the University of Salford, the group agreed that existing evidence and guidance on OA should be brought together. These should then be presented as a coordinated summary of why and how to adopt an open approach. The group noted that the ways in which research excellence and impact are measured play a key role in influencing behaviour. Where necessary - for example around the practical arrangements for paying OA publication charges - further work should be done to clarify what is possible at the moment and where further provision might be needed.
The group is reportedly united in its support for innovation and will encourage debate in the sector around new publication models.
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