Setting up an Institutional Fund

Bill HubbardHead of Centre for Research Communications

University of Nottingham

Compliance and Support

• Academic researchers need clarity• Funders need compliance• Institutions need clear funding routes• Policies and publicity should alert researchers

to their responsibilities under funder mandates

• Policies and publicity should reassure researchers that OA costs will be met

• Support systems should be in place to help - and monitor compliance

• A central OA Fund can help address this

Research Income and OA fees

• Direct costs: – Research grants can be used to fund OA fees

during the life-time of a grant– Researchers need to be encouraged to build this

into their grant applications

• Indirect costs: – Overheads claimed by the institution can also

include OA fee costs– Funds need to be identifiable & accessible to

researchers – Costs need to be built into institutional overhead

costing models

Detailed Guidance: EPSRC

“Universities can recover publication fees incurred after a grant has ended as an indirect cost. This involves setting up funds and processes at an institutional or sub-institutional level. If a university chooses to set up a fund to enable their researchers to pay publication fees, it can form part of the costs used for calculating the university’s standard rate for the indirect costs of research. In the same way, a proportion of library costs are currently included in calculating the standard rate. Indirect costs are based on the annual attribution and reporting of costs in previous years, so universities can only start to include the costs of paying publication fees in their calculation of indirect cost the year after they first make provision.”

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Payments of Publication Fees http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/ResearchFunding/GrantHolders/PublicationFees.htm

The UK Situation 2009

• Survey of UK HE library directors, June 2009

• 55 valid responses– Russell Group: 11– Pre-92 universities:

24– New universities:

15– HE colleges: 5

Central Funds?

• Question: “Do you have an institutionally-coordinated approach to payment of per-article OA fees (such as a central fund)?”

• “Yes”: 8 institutions (14%)• No correlation between institution

type and OA fund• No clear pattern of responsibility in

the institution for funds – 7 of the 8 funds administered centrally

• 3 by library• 3 by research support office• 1 by graduate school

Institutional Context

• The possibility of setting up a fund has been raised in many institutions

• About 8 saw it as a real possibility in the next 12 months (varying levels of confidence)

• Some indicated alternative arrangements are in place e.g. devolved responsibility

• Library managers are usually the ones initiating discussions in institutions

Nottingham: Case Study

Recommendations adopted by the University Research Committee, November 2006:

1.All authors should be encouraged to deposit copies of their papers in the Nottingham ePrints repository.2.The University should identify a central budget upon which all authors in the institution can call to fund publications/OA charges.3.Wellcome-funded authors should be reminded of the availability of funds to pay for their publications/OA charges.4.Further internal publicity should be carried out in order to inform academic staff of the new requirements of funders.5.Arrangements should be put in place to monitor the University’s compliance with funder requirements.

Working with an OA Fund

• Approved in November 2006• Managed by the research support office

(Research Innovation Services, RIS)• Procedures document developed, March 2007• Publicity undertaken by RIS and Information

Services• Monitoring of the fund by RIS and IS• Fund re-endorsed by Research Committee, 2008• Review of procedures• Further publicity required

Usage

• Total number of requests over 3 years: 210

• Requests per year– 2006-07: 31– 2007-08: 79– 2008-09: 100

• Over 3 years– BMC: 103– Non-BMC: 107

Costs

• Total costs: £233,581• Costs per year:

– 2006-07: £28,597– 2007-08: £84,370– 2008-09: £120,614

• Over 3 years– BMC: £106,566– Non-BMC: £127,015

Costs

• Mean average cost per article: £1,112– BMC articles: £1,035– Non-BMC articles: £1,187

• Highest payment: £2,975• Lowest payment: £347

Claimants

• Claimants predominantly from Medical and Life Sciences areas

• Faculties:– Medicine and Health

Sciences: 49%– Science: 46%– Engineering: 1%– Social Sciences, Law and

Education: 4%– Arts: none

• Within the Faculty of Science most claimants from Biology, Biosciences and Veterinary Science

Publishers

• Payments made to 26 publishers over 3 years• Only 6 publishers received payments for more than 5

articles:– BMC: 103– Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology: 9– Elsevier: 9– Oxford University Press: 9– Public Library of Science: 6– Springer: 10

• Mean average publisher charge: £1,358• Learned society publishers: £1,242

Considerations for Institutions

1. Identify an institutional ‘champion’2. Clarify funder policies3. Establish clear institutional arrangements

for cost recovery4. Consider the most appropriate

institutionally-coordinated arrangements5. Agree policies for ‘non-funded’

researchers6. Develop clear policies for the Fund

Considerations for Institutions

7. Consider the relationship with library funding

8. Develop streamlined workflows9. Undertake publicity10.Provide proactive support for researchers11.Monitor compliance12.Review policies and funding regularly

Considerations for other stakeholders• Publisher developments required:

– streamlining workflows – achieving greater standardisation

• Consortial/national developments required: – negotiating with publishers on policies,

workflows and price

• Funder developments required:– new workflows for compliance processes– work more closely with institutions on common

aims for research outputs

Other considerations

• Control of price - still no open market• Relationship with library funding• Relationship of institutional repositories

– funding for OA publishing– content for REF and management activities– within institution’s information systems &

workflows– used as support mechanism

• Alternatives?– if the timing of grant periods is the problem -

then change the timing!

References

• SHERPA JULIET (funder policies)– http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/

• SHERPA ROMEO (publisher copyright policies)– http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo

• UUK/RIN guidance to UK institutions– http://www.rin.ac.uk/openaccess-payment-fees

• With thanks to:– Chris Middleton for analysis of the Nottingham central

fund usage statistics – Stephen Pinfield for the original version of this

presentation

Questions?

• Bill Hubbard• Head of Centre for Research

Communications• JISC Research Communication Strategist

• bill.hubbard@nottingham.ac.uk

CRC Summary

SHERPA Partnership

News - Information - Investigation

SHERPA Services

RoMEO - JULIET - OpenDOAR

JISC ResearchCommunications

StrategyStrategy Development - Feedback - Dissemination

SHERPA Projects

RSP - NECOBELAC DRIVERII - OpenAIRE

National Partner DRIVER

ConfederationCOAR

OA Research, Surveys, Projects

University OA Services

R & D