I thought that it might be useful to document Australia's official position
re funder mandates, and I have been encouraged to post it to GOAL. Australia
has two Research Councils. NH&MRC does medical research, ARC handles all the
rest.
Australian Research Council
The ARC explicitly allows grant funds to be used to pay page charges and/or
author-side Gold Journal fees. This is the wording of clause 5.2.2 of the
2013 ARC grant application guidelines "5.2. Budget Items Supported" for
Discovery Grants (the main kind):
"5.2.2 Publication and dissemination of Project outputs and
outreach activity costs may be supported at up to two (2) per cent of total
ARC funding awarded to the Project, and no prior approval is required; nor
does this need to be separately itemised at time of application. This
excludes fees for patent application and holding. The ARC strongly
encourages publication in publicly accessible outlets and the depositing of
data and any publications arising from a Project in an appropriate subject
and/or institutional repository."
This clause appears for the first time in the Rules for 2012, without the
words in bold and the sentence regarding patent fees. The 2011 guidelines
were very different.
To be fair, I should also note that clause 13.3.2 "13. Reporting
Requirements" states:
"13.3.2 The Final Report must justify why any publications
from a Project have not been deposited in appropriate repositories within 12
months of publication. The Final Report must outline how data arising from
the Project has been made publicly accessible where appropriate." (2012 and
2013)
A similar requirement has been in the guidelines for some time. I have never
heard of any audit of compliance with this clause, nor consequences. Note
that subject or institutional repositories are acceptable, and the waiver is
very broad. The twelve months almost certainly does not derive from
publisher pressure, but from the fact that Australian universities have a
long-standing annual publication reporting requirement (HERDC = Higher
Education Research Data Collection) due at EOY and submitted in Feb/Mar of
the following year, so this requirement just dovetails with the returns
already made annually.
National Health & Medical Research Council
The NH&MRC is more opaque. Its funding rules for 2013 state (Appendix B,
linked pdf on DIRECT RESEARCH COSTS):
"Note1.: Publications costs cannot be requested on an
application but may be listed as a legitimate cost against DRCs as part of
the financial acquittal process."
On the other hand its dissemination policy is explicit (2013):
"12.2 Dissemination of Scientific Findings
To maximise the benefits from research and as broadly as
possible allow access by other researchers investigators and the wider
community, NHMRC encourages investigators and Administering Institutions to
* Promote responsible publication and
dissemination of the research findings;
* Disseminate all research findings; and
* Disclose research support accurately.
Section 4 of the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct
of Research, outlines these and other responsibilities of Institutions and
Investigators, which apply to all forms of dissemination. This document is
available at: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines/publications/r39.
NHMRC strongly supports investigators depositing their data
and any publications arising from a research project in an appropriate
subject and/or institutional repository wherever such a repository is
available to the investigator(s). Any research outputs that have been or
will be deposited in appropriate repositories should be identified in the
Final Report.
Grant recipients must ensure that they comply with NHMRC
policy on the dissemination of research findings, which is available
at:http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/grants/policy/dissemination-research-findings.";
The second link leads to the new policy which comes into effect on 1 July
2012:
"The revised policy states that:
'The Australian Government makes a major investment
in research to support its essential role in improving the wellbeing of our
society. To maximise the benefits from research, publications resulting from
research activities must be disseminated as broadly as possible to allow
access by other researchers and the wider community.
NHMRC acknowledges that researchers take into
account a wide range of factors in deciding on the best outlets for
publications arising from their research.
Such considerations include the status and
reputation of a journal, book, publisher or conference, the peer review
process of evaluating their research outputs, access by other stakeholders
to their work, the likely impact of their work on users of research and the
further dissemination and production of knowledge.
Taking heed of these considerations, NHMRC wants to
ensure the widest possible dissemination of the research supported by NHMRC
funding, in the most effective manner and at the earliest opportunity.
NHMRC therefore requires that any publications
arising from an NHMRC supported research project must be deposited into an
open access institutional repository within a twelve month period from the
date of publication.'
NHMRC understands that some researchers may not be able to meet the
new requirements initially because of current legal or contractual
obligations. The support material being developed by NHMRC will provide
further guidance on this and other scenarios."
The key sentences are the last three which I have shown in red. Although it
is not explicitly stated, the NH&MRC clearly expects that deposited
applications will not be restricted, but must be open access. The
Request-a-Copy button and the Accepted Manuscript (ID/OA) are not mentioned.
The rules will however invalidate the ability of authors and publishers to
make legal blanket copyright transfers.
Analysis
The above is all fact, but what follows is my opinion and analysis.
1 Both the ARC and the NH&MRC support Green deposit, but they also
allow grant funds to be used for author-side Gold fees.
2 The NH&MRC strongly mandates the Green Road (irrespective of whether
the publication appears in a Gold OA journal or not). All Australian
universities have OA repositories. The NH&MRC mandate is a major step
forward.
3 No-one should have angst about the twelve month deposit period of
either research council (as compared to six months), because even if there
was some publisher influence, it is geared to the annual HERDC reporting
cycle, which requires that every publication produced in the previous
calendar year be reported to the Government in Feb/March. In practice at
least half the researchers and probably more put their citations into the
database as soon as they are published, resulting in a steady stream of
uploads, and only a minor flurry of activity at the EOY. I expect this to
generalize to VoR upload easily. Uploading of citations is usually done by
administrative staff (initiated by data provided by academics), and is
subject to Government audit for accuracy of claims. The admin staff harry
the academics.
4 There are grounds for concern that the deposit (for both councils)
appears to require the Version of Record, and not the Accepted Manuscript
(the ID/OA path).
5 Universities will probably feel somewhat aggrieved that they have to
respond to the NH&MRC mandate and that it only applies to a subset of staff.
However, this may be ameliorated since only the Faculty of Health Sciences
(or equivalent) is affected (and possibly Psychology), so their work to
enforce the NH&MRC mandate is limited. The easy solution is of course for
the University to interpose a stronger institution-wide mandate, as for
example at Macquarie University and the Queensland University of Technology.
There is an opportunity here for Australian activists.
6 Gold outlets are supported, but Green is seen as the prime route. In
the case of NH&MRC, one cannot argue with their policy as there is a Green
mandate backing up the possible Gold expenditure. The ARC is the backslider,
the outgoing CEO believing that the general public (including industry) are
not interested in the research it funds. Not a supportable position.
7 I cannot see Australia as supporting a bizarre notion such as the
Finch report appears to be. There is no stomach to use our research funds to
support the publishing industry through a transition. We will follow
whatever happens...
Arthur Sale
Emeritus Professor of Computer Science
University of Tasmania
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