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Readers of this list will be interested in the views of the Australian
Research Council's CEO. He deserves the full support of this list to
rationalize the policies of the two Australian research councils
The twelve-month embargo is a bit long, but we can live with
that.<br><br>
Arthur Sale<br>
Tasmania, Australia<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">>>>>BEGINS<br>
<br>
The Chronicle of Higher Education<br><br>
<h1><b>The Australian Research Council’s New Leader Opens
Up</b></h1><br><br>
October 3, 2012, 2:44 pm<br>
By
<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/author/jhoward">Jennifer
Howard</a><br><br>
<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/files/2012/10/Aidan_Byrne.jpg">
<img src="http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/files/2012/10/Aidan_Byrne-195x300.jpg" width=195 height=300 alt="[]">
</a><br><br>
<i>Australia has two main agencies that hand out government research
money: the <a href="http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/">National Health and Medical
Research Council,</a> or NHMRC, and the
<a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/default.htm">Australian Research
Council,</a> or ARC. Aidan Byrne, a nuclear physicist, became the ARC’s
chief executive in July. Although he’s still “finding his feet” in the
job, he says, Mr. Byrne has made it an early priority to broaden access
to government-supported research in Australia.</i> The Chronicle <i>spoke
with him by phone about how that effort is shaping up.<br>
</i><br>
<b>Q. In July you told the
<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/arc-chief-open-to-access/story-e6frgcjx-1226434192258">
<i>Australian</a></i> newspaper that you have a “particular interest” in
open access. Why is that?<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> I’ve been working in academic life for nearly 30 years, and I’m
a firm believer in disseminating information in the most effective way. I
think open access has shown that it can do that very, very effectively. …
Earlier this year, the National Heath and Medical Research Council
changed their policy. They mandated open access so that 12 months after
publication, material should go into a repository. That was before I took
over the job here at the Australian Research Council. Given my previous
life, my preference for disseminating information generated by public
money as broadly as possible, it was my view that we should also follow
suit there.<br><br>
<b>Q. What steps have you taken toward that goal since you took over the
job?<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> I’ve written now to all [Australian] universities and a number
of other stakeholders asking them for advice as to why my policy should
not be the same as the National Health and Medical Research Council’s.
I’ve also been going around to institutions in the country and talking to
them, and I have not heard a dissenting comment why my policy at this
organization should be different. So I think we are heading to a regime
where both of the major funding institutions in Australia will have an
open-access policy. …<br><br>
What that will mean is that from now on, I think, whenever we generate
funding rules for part of our program, we will be building in open access
as part of that. … We’re a very small country, and we have an intimate
research environment here. For us to have a different policy from the
NHMRC doesn’t make a lot of sense. … Movement has accelerated over the
last 12 months. Activity in the United Kingdom and in Europe particularly
has meant that things are changing very rapidly. In some ways I see
Australia almost as a late adopter here.<br><br>
<b>Q. You mentioned that you’ve heard no dissent so far.<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> No, look, I haven’t. I have visited nearly 10 institutions
already, and not one of them has actually raised any objections to going
down this route. Most of them are actually also recipients of funds from
the National Health and Medical Research Council, so in some ways they’ve
been forewarned. … In some ways it’s not a surprise to them. That’s been
one of the reasons why we haven’t seen any major issues arising.<br><br>
<b>Q. Aside from universities, what stakeholders are you asking for input
on open access?<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> I’ve talked to our librarian groups and the national libraries
as well. … I’ve had a couple of conversations with publishers. … While
they have their views on it, I don’t think they see a particular issue
with having the two agencies’ policies be the same. And arguably, for
them, it’s a more difficult regime for them to work in if they have two
different regimes working in the country. To some degree there’s some
overlap between what we fund and what the NHMRC funds. And having a
simpler regime, whether you like it or not, is probably easier for the
publishers to deal with as well.<br><br>
<b>Q. On the American scene and in the U.K., there’s been some very vocal
publisher opposition to the idea of government-mandated access. Are you
hearing any of that in Australia?<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> Certainly we do have a number of academic publishers in this
country, but they’re really quite small. I’ll probably cause offense to
some of them, saying that. But it’s not on the scale of the U.K. or U.S.
… So from that point of view, we don’t have the same degrees of anxiety,
or indeed are likely to go down a similar road to the U.K. We have not
mandated a gold open-access policy, for instance. [Gold open access
focuses on journals rather than on repositories as the means of making
material public.] … I can see why some countries might take that
approach, but it’s probably not the right solution for Australia. Much of
the academic work in Australia is actually published in international
journals. I don’t have the number off the top of my head, but it wouldn’t
surprise me if, say, something like 80 percent, if not more, of the
published [research] activity was published outside the country.
…<br><br>
<b>Q. Do you have the authority to go ahead and implement an open-access
policy at ARC?<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> There’s of course a process to go through. Even though I’m the
chief executive officer, decisions are actually made by the minister
[<a href="http://minister.innovation.gov.au/chrisevans/Pages/default.aspx">
Chris Evans</a>, the country's minister for tertiary education, skills,
science, and research]… We put it into funding rules, and those funding
rules are approved by the minister. I don’t see any major issue in that.
… I’ve brought this up with the minister in my conversations with him. …
I think he’s supportive, he is indeed.<br><br>
<b>Q. How do you see open access fitting in with the
<a href="http://www.arc.gov.au/era/default.htm">Excellence in Research
for Australia</a> project? [The ERA assesses research quality using a
variety of indicators; it's now in its third iteration.]<br>
</b><br>
<b>A.</b> I think it will force us to adapt what we use in our Excellence
in Research for Australia exercise and be mindful of the different
measures of activity in published work. … We do have to think about that
anyway building in how work is disseminated and taken up in the new
media. … Even if we did nothing in the open-access space, how academics
make an impact in society through social media or other technological
instruments is changing on a time scale that would force us to think
about that anyway.<br><br>
<i>Image: Aidan Byrne, ARC<br>
</i> </blockquote></body>
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