Many funding bodies are now requiring that any publication resulting from their funding be made Open Access (OA) and readily available in the public domain. This means that other researchers and the general public have access to research findings.
The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC) have revised their Open Access policies to bring them in line with other international funding bodies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States, and the Wellcome Trust and UK Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom.
The NHMRC has revised their policy on Dissemination of Research Findings to ensure that any findings from NHMRC funded research are made publicly available to as broad an audience as possible. This involves mandating that from 1 July 2012, all journal publications will be published in an Open Access repository within 12 months of publication.
As of 1 January 2013, the ARC has changed its Open Access Policy to bring it in line with the NHMRC and will be incorporated into all new Funding Rules and Agreements released after 1 January 2013. According to this new policy, the ARC requires that any publication arising from an ARC supported research project must be deposited into an Open Access institutional repository within 12 months of publication. Unlike the NHMRC, the ARC mandate applies to all publication types.
Some other international open access mandates include:
Sherpa/JULIET is a searchable online database of research funders‘ Open Access policies and requirements.