Biosciences Federation welcomes Universities UK guidelines on funding open access publishing

The Biosciences Federation supports the recommendations made by the recent Universities UK report on open access publishing. This report lays out guidelines to make it easier for researchers to access funds to satisfy funding bodies’ open access mandates. The report recommends:

• Higher Education Institutions should each set up a dedicated budget to pay author-side open access publication charges.

• Funding bodies should clarify how they will provide support for researchers to meet their open access policies, especially regarding the payment of open access publishing fees.

An earlier report by the Biosciences Federation identified that, although funders were increasingly insistent on published research being open access, researchers experienced considerable difficultly in accessing the appropriate funds to do this. This new report, produced by Universities UK and the Research Information Network, brought together representatives from relevant stakeholders including funding bodies, publishers, institutional administrators and the Biosciences Federation to produce guidelines on how to implement fee-paid open access sustainably.

Biosciences Federation press release

Authors' Guide to UK funders' policies on Open Access

Universities UK report