Mandatory Open Access publication for all HRB funded research
1 March 2010
The HRB is introducing an Open Access publication policy that will mean unrestricted access to the published outputs of HRB funded research.
The HRB supports the principle that ideas and knowledge derived from publicly-funded research should be made available and accessible for public use, interrogation and scrutiny, as widely, rapidly and effectively as practicable.
According to Mairead O'Driscoll, Director of Research Strategy and Funding at the HRB;
'While the published research must still be subject to rigorous quality assurance through the peer review process, the public should not have to 'pay twice' for it by having to pay a fee to access the academic publication in question. Consequently the HRB, along with Science Foundation Ireland, has become a member of the UK PubMed Central Repository.'
This is a free-to-access digital archive of full-text peer reviewed biomedical and life sciences research. As of November 2009, this held over 1.7million full-text articles, which are freely available to anyone.
O'Driscoll adds,
'The HRB expects that all future research funded by it will be published in this or other open access repositories.'
The research community will be circulated detailed instructions on the practicalities of this change in policy.
