Publishers and Funders reach agreement on open access and re-use rights
Publishers and Funders reach agreement on open access and re-use rights
The UK PubMed Central Publishers Panel – a panel comprising research funders and scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publisher trade associations – has agreed a set of principles in relation to the re-use of documents for which an open access fee has been paid.
The agreement recognises that it is in the interests of fostering and promoting research that open access articles may be freely copied and used for text and data mining purposes, provided that such uses are fully attributed, undertaken on a non-commercial basis, and do not interfere with any moral rights of the author(s) of the articles.
In addition to making such papers open and freely accessible to all users worldwide at the time of publication, other re-use of the content – such as further redistribution, adaptation and translation – is encouraged under licence from individual rights-holders.
Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust welcomed this agreement.
“It is essential that full advantage is taken of the opportunities provided by open access to the results of research. Reading the results of the research is only the first step - if an important one! Huge added value can be added to research by linking the text of scientific papers to databases, such as protein sequence and structural databases and genome databases. Sophisticated text mining techniques can link related papers one to another, which may lead to the development of new scientific ideas or, alternatively question the significance of some results. This agreement between funders and publishers will help to maximise the value of research results, an outcome which is good for science and society."
A number of publishers already provide an open access option in accord with the principles agreed here including Springer, OUP and Elsevier.
The Statement of Principle also stresses the value publishers add to the research process, and encourages funding bodies to establish clear funding mechanisms to ensure that these legitimate research costs can be met.
“This statement demonstrates that funders and publishers can work together constructively for the benefit of scholarly communication”, commented Bob Campbell, Senior Publisher at Wiley-Blackwell.
The full Statement of Principle is
1. It is in the interests of fostering and promoting research that such documents may be freely copied and used for text and data mining purposes, provided that such uses are fully attributed, undertaken on a non-commercial basis, and do not interfere with any moral rights of the author(s) of the documents. "Commercial" is taken here to include (but not be limited to) the use of documents by for-profit organisations for promotional purposes, whether for a fee or otherwise.
2. These documents are protected by copyright and/or other applicable law. Where content in the document is identified as belonging to a third party, consent should be obtained from the third party for the right to re-use this content.
3. In addition to making the document openly and freely accessible to all users worldwide at the time of publication, other re-use of the content, including but not limited to further redistribution, adaptation and translation, is encouraged under licence from individual rightsholders.
4. The UKPMC Funders recognise the value that publishers add to the research process and acknowledge that the costs associated with publishing are legitimate research costs and encourage the implementation of clear funding mechanisms for meeting these costs.
The statement can also be found on the Wellcome website.
Notes to Editors
- The UKPMC Publishers Panel is made up of representatives of the funders of UK PubMed Central and the following trade associations: The Publishers Association, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
- UK PubMed Central is funded by the following research funders: Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), British Heart Foundation (BHF), Cancer Research UK (CR-UK), Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Executive Health Department (CSO), Department of Health (DH), Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust. The Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) are associate members of the UKPMC Funders Group.
- The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
- The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) is the international trade association for not-for-profit publishers and those who work with them.
- The Publishers Association’s (PA) mission is to strengthen the trading environment for UK publishers, by providing a strong voice for the industry in Government, within society and with other stakeholders in the UK, in Europe and internationally; providing a forum for the exchange of non-competitive information between publishers; and providing support and guidance to the industry through technological and other changes.
- STM – the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers – is an international association of about 100 scientific, technical, medical and scholarly publishers, collectively responsible for more than 60% of the global annual output of research articles, over half the active research journals and the publication of tens of thousands of print and electronic books, reference works and databases.
