Transcript Setting up an Institutional Fund Bill Hubbard Head of Centre for Research Communications University of Nottingham.

Setting up an Institutional Fund
Bill Hubbard
Head of Centre for Research Communications
University of Nottingham
Compliance and Support
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Academic researchers need clarity
Funders need compliance
Institutions need clear funding routes
Policies and publicity should alert researchers to
their responsibilities under funder mandates
• Policies and publicity should reassure researchers
that OA costs will be met
• Support systems should be in place to help - and
monitor compliance
• A central OA Fund can help address this
Research Income and OA fees
• Direct costs:
– Research grants can be used to fund OA fees during the
life-time of a grant
– Researchers need to be encouraged to build this into their
grant applications
• Indirect costs:
– Overheads claimed by the institution can also include OA
fee costs
– Funds need to be identifiable & accessible to researchers
– Costs need to be built into institutional overhead costing
models
Detailed Guidance: EPSRC
“Universities can recover publication fees incurred after a grant has ended as an
indirect cost.This involves setting up funds and processes at an institutional or subinstitutional level.
If a university chooses to set up a fund to enable their researchers to pay publication
fees, it can form part of the costs used for calculating the university’s standard rate for
the indirect costs of research. In the same way, a proportion of library costs are
currently included in calculating the standard rate.
Indirect costs are based on the annual attribution and reporting of costs in previous
years, so universities can only start to include the costs of paying publication fees in
their calculation of indirect cost the year after they first make provision.”
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Payments of Publication Fees
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/GrantHolders/PublicationFees.htm
The UK Situation 2009
• Survey of UK HE library
directors, June 2009
• 55 valid responses
– Russell Group: 11
– Pre-92 universities: 24
– New universities: 15
– HE colleges: 5
Central Funds?
• Question: “Do you have an institutionallycoordinated approach to payment of perarticle OA fees (such as a central fund)?”
• “Yes”: 8 institutions (14%)
• No correlation between institution type
and OA fund
• No clear pattern of responsibility in the
institution for funds
– 7 of the 8 funds administered centrally
• 3 by library
• 3 by research support office
• 1 by graduate school
Institutional Context
• The possibility of setting up a fund has been raised in
many institutions
• About 8 saw it as a real possibility in the next 12
months (varying levels of confidence)
• Some indicated alternative arrangements are in place
e.g. devolved responsibility
• Library managers are usually the ones initiating
discussions in institutions
Nottingham: Case Study
Recommendations adopted by the University Research Committee,
November 2006:
1.All authors should be encouraged to deposit copies of their papers in the
Nottingham ePrints repository.
2.The University should identify a central budget upon which all authors in
the institution can call to fund publications/OA charges.
3.Wellcome-funded authors should be reminded of the availability of funds to
pay for their publications/OA charges.
4.Further internal publicity should be carried out in order to inform academic
staff of the new requirements of funders.
5.Arrangements should be put in place to monitor the University’s compliance
with funder requirements.
Working with an OA Fund
• Approved in November 2006
• Managed by the research support office (Research Innovation
Services, RIS)
• Procedures document developed, March 2007
• Publicity undertaken by RIS and Information Services
• Monitoring of the fund by RIS and IS
• Fund re-endorsed by Research Committee, 2008
• Review of procedures
• Further publicity required
Usage
• Total number of requests
over 3 years: 210
• Requests per year
– 2006-07: 31
– 2007-08: 79
– 2008-09: 100
• Over 3 years
– BMC: 103
– Non-BMC: 107
Costs
• Total costs: £233,581
• Costs per year:
– 2006-07: £28,597
– 2007-08: £84,370
– 2008-09: £120,614
• Over 3 years
– BMC: £106,566
– Non-BMC: £127,015
Costs
• Mean average cost per article: £1,112
– BMC articles: £1,035
– Non-BMC articles: £1,187
• Highest payment: £2,975
• Lowest payment: £347
Claimants
• Claimants predominantly from
Medical and Life Sciences areas
• Faculties:
– Medicine and Health Sciences:
49%
– Science: 46%
– Engineering: 1%
– Social Sciences, Law and
Education: 4%
– Arts: none
• Within the Faculty of Science
most claimants from Biology,
Biosciences and Veterinary
Science
Publishers
• Payments made to 26 publishers over 3 years
• Only 6 publishers received payments for more than
5 articles:
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BMC: 103
Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology: 9
Elsevier: 9
Oxford University Press: 9
Public Library of Science: 6
Springer: 10
• Mean average publisher charge: £1,358
• Learned society publishers: £1,242
Considerations for Institutions
1. Identify an institutional ‘champion’
2. Clarify funder policies
3. Establish clear institutional arrangements for cost
recovery
4. Consider the most appropriate institutionallycoordinated arrangements
5. Agree policies for ‘non-funded’ researchers
6. Develop clear policies for the Fund
Considerations for Institutions
7. Consider the relationship with library funding
8. Develop streamlined workflows
9. Undertake publicity
10.Provide proactive support for researchers
11.Monitor compliance
12.Review policies and funding regularly
Considerations for other stakeholders
• Publisher developments required:
– streamlining workflows
– achieving greater standardisation
• Consortial/national developments required:
– negotiating with publishers on policies, workflows and
price
• Funder developments required:
– new workflows for compliance processes
– work more closely with institutions on common aims for
research outputs
Other considerations
• Control of price - still no open market
• Relationship with library funding
• Relationship of institutional repositories
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funding for OA publishing
content for REF and management activities
within institution’s information systems & workflows
used as support mechanism
• Alternatives?
– if the timing of grant periods is the problem - then change
the timing!
References
• SHERPA JULIET (funder policies)
– http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/
• SHERPA ROMEO (publisher copyright policies)
– http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo
• UUK/RIN guidance to UK institutions
– http://www.rin.ac.uk/openaccess-payment-fees
• With thanks to:
– Chris Middleton for analysis of the Nottingham central fund usage
statistics
– Stephen Pinfield for the original version of this presentation
Questions?
• Bill Hubbard
• Head of Centre for Research Communications
• JISC Research Communication Strategist
• [email protected]
CRC Summary
SHERPA
Partnership
JISC Research
Communications
Strategy
News - Information Investigation
Strategy Development Feedback - Dissemination
SHERPA
Projects
University
OA Services
R&D
RSP - NECOBELAC
DRIVERII - OpenAIRE
SHERPA
Services
RoMEO - JULIET OpenDOAR
National Partner
DRIVER
Confederation
COAR
OA Research,
Surveys,
Projects