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UKRI issues guidance on monograph open-access policy

  

Funder publishes information on exemptions and dedicated funding for long-form content

National funder UK Research and Innovation has announced updates to its open-access policy ahead of its requirement for long-form content kicking in next year.

For over a year now, UKRI has been requiring research articles resulting from its funding to be made immediately open access. From 2024, it will require monographs, book chapters and edited collections resulting from its funding to be open access within 12 months of publication.

Ahead of the new requirement starting, UKRI released an updated version of its open-access policy document on 24 May, which includes new guidance on exemptions for the long-form requirement.

Exemptions

UKRI said it “recognises there may be rare instances where meeting open-access requirements for long-form outputs may not be possible”.

Exemptions from the long-form requirement include instances where the only appropriate publisher is unable to offer an open-access option that complies with the policy.

UKRI also released information about its dedicated £3.5 million fund for the long-form requirement that it ring-fenced from its overall commitment of £46.7m per year to support the implementation of the policy.

Similar to the article requirement, UKRI-funded researchers will have two options when publishing monographs, book chapters and edited collections. They can either chose a publisher that will allow them to publish open access, or one that does not and then deposit the author-accepted manuscript—the version that has been accepted by the publisher—in a repository.

With the first option, publishers may charge for making the content open access, typically in the form of a book-processing charge, which can be costly.

The £3.5m will support researchers in paying for such open-access costs for monographs, book chapters and edited collections, and UKRI revealed applications to the fund will open in autumn this year.

Funding ‘significantly underestimated’

Christopher Pressler, John Rylands University librarian and director of the University of Manchester Library, told Research Professional News there are some “challenges” facing the “otherwise commendable” UKRI position on open-access monographs.

He explained that the infrastructure for open-access monographs that will be needed to support the “sheer quantity” of publications resulting from the policy “does not yet exist”.

And using small institutional or library-led presses for open-access monograph publishing is “dependent on either short-term project funding or subsidies from those institutions”.

“The current financial climate cannot be considered secure enough to build a policy around such fragile faux business models.”

He added that the proposed £3.5m is, in his view, “significantly underestimated”.

“Such open-access support would likely be consumed by the output of only three or four of the large research-intensive [universities] and would offer no development in the infrastructure needed for the long term.”

While libraries such as Manchester are “fully supportive” of the vision UKRI is proposing, it is “essential that our practical understanding of how research actually happens, and in reality costs, be a part of planning for the future”, Pressler said.

UKRI said it would release more guidance on long-form outputs before the policy kicks in at the beginning of next year, including full guidance on applying to the fund and permissible costs, as well as a best practice guide about using third-party materials.