Abstract
Open access (OA) may have been the ‘big thing’ in 2013 but the OA juggernaut is still rolling and plans are now afoot for the requirements for the ‘next REF’ (which from now on we will refer to as REF2020). In 2013, on behalf of the four UK Funding Councils, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) undertook a two-stage consultation exercise on open access requirements for articles submitted to REF2020. There are a number of nuances and caveats to the current proposals. This article will reflect on what the probable rules might be, and their implications for research managers, administrators and institutional repository managers alike.
Highlights
Universities in the UK are funded for research under the Haldane Principle[1] of dual support
Such papers are exempt from the Open access (OA) requirement so there should be no barrier to attracting high quality international staff to the UK, who might have a number of articles published through non-OA routes prior to coming to the UK, which would otherwise be ineligible for REF2020
The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) proposal states that there should be a two-year period of grace, with the requirement only coming into force from January 2016
Summary
Universities in the UK are funded for research under the Haldane Principle[1] of dual support. Panels of academic and user experts are assessing research and research related information submitted last November and the results will be published in December 2014. The results of these assessments will directly drive this core funding (known as ‘quality related’, or ‘QR’ funding) part of the dual support system for the six years from 2015/16 onwards. The balance is provided by the universities themselves; so availability of QR funding impacts on the ability of universities to attract and resource externally funded projects
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