[GOAL] BMJ Open Press Release: Large medical research funders committed to open access publishing Embargo: 00:01 hours (UK time) Thursday 24 October 2013

[Emma Dickinson]

*BMJ Open Press Release
Embargo: 00:01 hours (UK time) Thursday 24 October 2013*

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*BMJ OPEN*

*Large medical research funders committed to open access publishing*

*But smaller medical charities, although keen, fear impact on budgets and
funded researchers*

*[Publishing priorities of biomedical research funders doi
10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004171]*

Large medical research funding bodies are fully committed to open access
publishing. But although smaller charitable funders back the principle,
they worry about the impact open access will have on their budgets and
their funded researchers, reveals a qualitative study published in the
online journal *BMJ Open*.

The findings come as Open Access Week (October 21-27), a global annual
event to promote open access as the norm in scholarly publishing and
research, celebrates its seventh year in business.

The premise of open access is that it provides free, immediate, online
access to the results of scholarly research, and ideally, the right to use
and reuse those results as desired, rather than restricting access behind a
subscription pay wall. The UK leads the world on open access.

Semi-structured interviews about open access policies and preferences were
carried out with 12 employees at 10 UK biomedical research funding bodies
in the Spring of this year in the public, charitable, and commercial
sectors.

The results showed that all three sectors back open access, but that while
public and charitable funders have clear policies on it, commercial sector
funders don’t tend to.

Most funders are happy to support the “gold” route, whereby a study’s
publication is paid for out of a research grant to cover the journal’s
costs. This is the model used by BMJ Open and the other open access titles
published by BMJ.

But funders said that not all publishers have embraced open access; many
are resisting it and are either reluctant to move away from traditional
publishing or are using it purely as a means to boost income.

Open access also seemed to be part of a funder’s overall mission - that is,
improving health, healthcare, patient outcomes, and patients’ lives -
although for many of the charitable funders, this had to be balanced
against other types of public communication and support for people living
with medical conditions.

But the way in which a funder gets its income influences its attitude to
open access. Charities, which rely on public donations, had to be able to
justify their costs and make the best use of available cash for all their
competing objectives.

But research funders across the board were worried about the escalating
costs of open access as the gold route becomes more mainstream and the cost
of publishing shifts from institutions to funders.

This is of particular concern to the smaller charitable funders, who have
historically not covered off these costs in their overheads, and fear they
will need to stump up the additional costs required.

Other key findings:
• Funders find it hard to monitor compliance with open access, as a
condition of funding; compliance rates vary enormously.
• Sanctions for breaching funding conditions are not harsh in the belief
that it is more important to encourage researchers to comply rather than to
punish them when they don’t.
• Research funders are turning their attention to other priorities for
publication, including data sharing, research protocols, and negative
results, which are not always favoured by more traditional outlets.

Sharmila Nebhrajani, Chief Executive of the Association of Medical Research
Charities commented: "The public choose to donate to medical research
charities to fund research into new treatments and cures, and they want
their money to make a difference. To [do this], charities want everyone to
be able to learn from their research findings, which is why they support
the principle of open access.”

But this involved upfront costs, which were not always easy for charities
to justify because of competing funding needs, she said.

“To make the biggest difference for their patients and supporters, funding
open access may not be the best decision for all charities right now. We
need to create an environment where it can be,” she said.

“This means prices that are clear and competitive so that charities can get
the best deal and show how they are investing their donations to make a
difference," she explained.

*Contact:*
Ellen Collins, Research Information Network, London, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)20 3397 3648
Email: ellen.collins at researchinfonet.org

Embargoed link to paper:
http://press.psprings.co.uk/Open/october/bmjopen004171.pdf
Public link to paper once embargo lifts:
http://www.bmjopen.bmj.com/lookup/doi/10.1136/bmjopen-2013-004171
Click here to listen to an accompanying podcast with the author: *
http://snd.sc/18OUjc8*

*Notes for editors:*
BMJ Open is BMJ’s (formerly BMJ Group) first online general medical journal
dedicated solely to publishing open access research. All its research,
supplementary files, and peer reviewers' reports are fully and openly
available online, along with an increasing number of linked raw data sets
in the Dryad repository (datadryad.org). www.bmjopen.bmj.com

*Embargo: 00:01 hours (UK time) Thursday 24 October 2013*
Emma Dickinson
PR Manager

* BMJ, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR*
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