Readers of this list will be interested in the
views of the Australian Research Council's CEO.
He deserves the full support of this list to
rationalize the policies of the two Australian
research councils The twelve-month embargo is a
bit long, but we can live with that.
Arthur Sale
Tasmania, Australia
>>>>BEGINS
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Australian Research Councils New Leader Opens Up
October 3, 2012, 2:44 pm
By <http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/author/jhoward>Jennifer Howard
<http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/files/2012/10/Aidan_Byrne.jpg>
[]
Australia has two main agencies that hand out
government research money: the
<http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/>National Health and
Medical Research Council, or NHMRC, and the
<http://www.arc.gov.au/default.htm>Australian
Research Council, or ARC. Aidan Byrne, a nuclear
physicist, became the ARCs chief executive in
July. Although hes still finding his feet in
the job, he says, Mr. Byrne has made it an early
priority to broaden access to
government-supported research in Australia. The
Chronicle spoke with him by phone about how that effort is shaping up.
Q. In July you told the
<http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/arc-chief-open-to-access/story-e6frgcjx-1226434192258>Australian
newspaper that you have a particular interest in open access. Why is that?
A. Ive been working in academic life for nearly
30 years, and Im a firm believer in
disseminating information in the most effective
way. I think open access has shown that it can
do that very, very effectively.
Earlier this
year, the National Heath and Medical Research
Council changed their policy. They mandated open
access so that 12 months after publication,
material should go into a repository. That was
before I took over the job here at the
Australian Research Council. Given my previous
life, my preference for disseminating
information generated by public money as broadly
as possible, it was my view that we should also follow suit there.
Q. What steps have you taken toward that goal since you took over the job?
A. Ive written now to all [Australian]
universities and a number of other stakeholders
asking them for advice as to why my policy
should not be the same as the National Health
and Medical Research Councils. Ive also been
going around to institutions in the country and
talking to them, and I have not heard a
dissenting comment why my policy at this
organization should be different. So I think we
are heading to a regime where both of the major
funding institutions in Australia will have an open-access policy.
What that will mean is that from now on, I
think, whenever we generate funding rules for
part of our program, we will be building in open
access as part of that.
Were a very small
country, and we have an intimate research
environment here. For us to have a different
policy from the NHMRC doesnt make a lot of
sense.
Movement has accelerated over the last
12 months. Activity in the United Kingdom and in
Europe particularly has meant that things are
changing very rapidly. In some ways I see
Australia almost as a late adopter here.
Q. You mentioned that youve heard no dissent so far.
A. No, look, I havent. I have visited nearly 10
institutions already, and not one of them has
actually raised any objections to going down
this route. Most of them are actually also
recipients of funds from the National Health and
Medical Research Council, so in some ways
theyve been forewarned.
In some ways its not
a surprise to them. Thats been one of the
reasons why we havent seen any major issues arising.
Q. Aside from universities, what stakeholders
are you asking for input on open access?
A. Ive talked to our librarian groups and the
national libraries as well.
Ive had a couple
of conversations with publishers.
While they
have their views on it, I dont think they see a
particular issue with having the two agencies
policies be the same. And arguably, for them,
its a more difficult regime for them to work in
if they have two different regimes working in
the country. To some degree theres some overlap
between what we fund and what the NHMRC funds.
And having a simpler regime, whether you like it
or not, is probably easier for the publishers to deal with as well.
Q. On the American scene and in the U.K.,
theres been some very vocal publisher
opposition to the idea of government-mandated
access. Are you hearing any of that in Australia?
A. Certainly we do have a number of academic
publishers in this country, but theyre really
quite small. Ill probably cause offense to some
of them, saying that. But its not on the scale
of the U.K. or U.S.
So from that point of
view, we dont have the same degrees of anxiety,
or indeed are likely to go down a similar road
to the U.K. We have not mandated a gold
open-access policy, for instance. [Gold open
access focuses on journals rather than on
repositories as the means of making material
public.]
I can see why some countries might
take that approach, but its probably not the
right solution for Australia. Much of the
academic work in Australia is actually published
in international journals. I dont have the
number off the top of my head, but it wouldnt
surprise me if, say, something like 80 percent,
if not more, of the published [research]
activity was published outside the country.
Q. Do you have the authority to go ahead and
implement an open-access policy at ARC?
A. Theres of course a process to go through.
Even though Im the chief executive officer,
decisions are actually made by the minister
[<http://minister.innovation.gov.au/chrisevans/Pages/default.aspx>Chris
Evans, the country's minister for tertiary
education, skills, science, and research]
We
put it into funding rules, and those funding
rules are approved by the minister. I dont see
any major issue in that.
Ive brought this up
with the minister in my conversations with him.
I think hes supportive, he is indeed.
Q. How do you see open access fitting in with
the
<http://www.arc.gov.au/era/default.htm>Excellence
in Research for Australia project? [The ERA
assesses research quality using a variety of
indicators; it's now in its third iteration.]
A. I think it will force us to adapt what we use
in our Excellence in Research for Australia
exercise and be mindful of the different
measures of activity in published work.
We do
have to think about that anyway building in
how work is disseminated and taken up in the new
media.
Even if we did nothing in the
open-access space, how academics make an impact
in society through social media or other
technological instruments is changing on a time
scale that would force us to think about that anyway.
Image: Aidan Byrne, ARC
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