Upcoming UK-wide survey on the delivery of funders’ open access policies

21 Jun 2017 01:45 PM

HEFCE, Jisc, the Wellcome Trust and Research Councils UK (RCUK) are to launch a survey to enhance their understanding of how the higher education sector is delivering funders’ open access policies.

An online survey will be sent to all UK higher education institutions (HEIs) in late summer 2017.‌

The survey will gather information on how the sector is meeting the open access policies of funders and the tools which are being used to do so. Data collected will be used to inform policy implementation and systems development.

HEFCE will send the survey to all UK HEIs late in the summer of 2017 on behalf of the other organisations.

Survey responses will be analysed in the autumn, and a report will be published about the findings.

The survey is intended to complement existing open access reporting processes. Data collected via this survey will not be used in the REF2021 assessment.

Steven Hill, Head of Research and Health Policy at HEFCE, said:

‘It is great to work collaboratively with Jisc, RCUK and Wellcome to gather a sector-wide view on HEI delivery of open access policies. We contracted Research Consulting as experts in this area to develop a suitable template for HEIs to complete. For HEFCE, and for Research England when established, this data collection will be important for producing REF2021 guidance.’

Further information is available on the HEFCE website, or email openaccess@hefce.ac.uk.