Major research council opts for open access policy

By Geoff Maslen. Australia’s major non-medical research funding organisation has adopted a new, open access policy that means the results of all the research it backs must be made freely available. This will require the published results to be deposited in an ‘open access institutional repository’ within 12 months of the date of publication in a journal.
In a statement released this week, the Australian Research Council (ARC) says the new policy came into effect on 1 January and will be incorporated in all new funding rules and agreements – but will not be applied retrospectively to existing arrangements.
The council says some researchers may not be able to meet the new requirements initially because of legal or contractual obligations, although final reports must give reasons why publications derived from a project, award or fellowship have not been made available in an open access repository. Read more...