Managing open access: the first year of managing RCUK and Wellcome Trust OA funding at the University of Glasgow Library

Abstract

ContextResearch Councils UK (RCUK) revised their open access (OA) policy 1 from 1 April 2013 so that article processing charges (APCs) could no longer be built into grant applications; instead universities receive a block grant to cover these costs. The University of Glasgow received £408k for 2013/14. RCUK accept both gold OA (payment of an APC to the publisher to make the version of record open access) and green OA (availability of the accepted final version of the article in an institutional or subject repository, often after a publisher-defined embargo period). RCUK set a target for institutions of 45% open access in the first year of assigning their block grant.The Wellcome Trust has a strong OA policy 2 and it gives some institutions funds to cover APCs. Many other funders (for example, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK) also have OA policies and although they have not historically allocated funds to universities to cover APCs, costs can sometimes be recovered. University of Glasgow's approach to open accessAt the University of Glasgow, the University's Research Planning and Strategy Committee (RPSC) has overall responsibility for the University's approach to funder requirements for open access and took the decision that green OA is the preferred route whenever possible. The members of RPSC felt strongly that internal processes for the management of the OA funds made available by RCUK and the Wellcome Trust should be low barrier for our academic staff and researchers. The Library was asked to manage these OA funds (taking over responsibility for the Wellcome Trust fund of c£90k at the same time as the new RCUK fund) and to work with RPSC to devise processes for allocating them.

A “Gold‐centric” implementation of open access: Hybrid journals, the “Total cost of publication,” and policy development in the UK and beyond

“…It may be important that both UCL and Imperial were among the small number of institutions using internal funding for centrally managed APC payments as well as external grants, indicating an institutional policy to encourage Gold OA. In contrast, Glasgow has in place a policy explicitly favoring Green OA where possible in preference to Gold, with only external funds being used to fund APCs (Ashworth, McCutcheon, & Roy, ). The data for funding source were, however, incomplete, with only 3,285 of the 4,853 records including a funding source.…”

Library funding for open access at KU Leuven

“…Furthermore, we were likewise confronted with constant payment reminders as our financial system is simply not set up for immediate payments, leading to a seemingly endless loop of e-mail conversations with both author and publisher assuring both parties that payments had been made. 20 'managing even a small-scale APC fund comes at a large administrative cost' All of this led us to conclude that instead of investing energy and money in handling APCs, we wanted to prioritize the development of an alternative OA ecosystem which holds more promise for equity and sustainability. Since 2021, we therefore focus the second part of the fund exclusively on creating partnerships with diamond OA platforms and other types of open scholarship infrastructure by contributing to their economic viability.…”

Adapting to a Dynamic Higher Education Environment – How the University of Glasgow Library Is Taking Up the Challenge

“…The Library has been delivering this service for three years and we have come across many challenges, not least because the Library is stepping into the middle of the publisher-author relationship and publisher systems were not set up to enable this intermediate role (Ashworth, Mccutcheon, & Roy, 2014). Systems and workflows are improving, both within institutions and with publishers, however support for open access is staff intensive and is creating significant new areas of work for University Libraries in the UK.…”