To maximise the benefits from research, findings need to be disseminated as broadly as possible to allow access by other researchers and the wider community. The NHMRC encourages researchers to consider the benefits of depositing their data and any publications arising from a research project in an appropriate subject and/or institutional repository wherever such a repository is available to the researcher(s). Any research outputs that have been or will be deposited in appropriate repositories should be identified in the Final Report.
Unlike the Australian Research Council (ARC), which announced a similar OA policy last week, the NHMRC does not (yet) require non-complying grantees to justify their non-compliance, an extra obligation that effectively converts the ARC encouragement into a mandate. However, Colin Steele writes:
Miranda Crean from the NHMRC research policy section emailed me on 8 December to say: "The IT system supporting our Final Reports does not currently allow an area for applicants to justify why they will not be despositing. However, once the new system is up and running (approx. 18 mths) the words "If a researcher is not intending to deposit the data from a project in a repository within a six-month period, he/she should include the reasons in the project's Final Report." will be included in the policy.
For this reason, I consider the NHMRC policy to be as much a mandate as the ARC policy.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
