Open Access

• National Health and Medical Research (NHMRC) mandate
• Australian Research Council (ARC) mandate
• International Open Access mandates
• SHERPA/JULIET
• Other Australian Initiatives

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.

• The Chief Investigator is responsible for providing publication metadata (i.e. journal name, title, author list, volume, issue, page numbers, etc) as well as the appropriate copy of the publication to the USC Research Bank.
• If authors are from multiple institutions, all institutions are permitted to deposit the metadata (and full text if desired) to their institutional repository.
• Publication in an Open Access journal or PubMed Central are also recognised as being legitimate outlets.
• NHMRC recognises that some researchers may not be able to meet the new requirements initially due to current legal or contractual obligations. In these cases, justification of non-compliance must be included in the project's Final Report.
• NHMRC Scholarships are exempt.

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.

• The Chief Investigator is responsible for providing publication metadata (i.e. journal name, title, author list, volume, issue, page numbers, etc) as well as the appropriate copy of the publication to the USC Research Bank.
• If authors are from multiple institutions, all institutions are permitted to deposit the metadata (and full text if desired) to their institutional repository.
• Publication in an Open Access journal or subject repository (such as PubMed Centralor ArXiv) are also recognised as being legitimate outlets.
• Publication and dissemination of Project outputs and outreach activity costs may be supported at up to two (2) percent of total ARC funding awarded to the Project.
• The ARC recognises that some researchers may not be able to meet the new requirements initially due to current legal or contractual obligations. In these cases, justification of non-compliance must be included in the project's Final Report.
• Applies to Awards, Projects and Fellowships.

Some other international open access mandates include:

• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• MRC Medical Research Council (UK)
• Wellcome Trust Open Access Policy

Sherpa/JULIET is a searchable online database of research funders‘ Open Access policies and requirements.

• Many Australian universities, including USC, make their higher degree by research theses freely available via the National Library of Australia'sTROVE repository.
• TROVE also harvests records in the USC Research Bank, which increases Internet search engine results.
• USC Research Bank contributes records to Research Data Australia, a metadata store for research datasets in Australia aimed at encouraging the reuse and sharing of research data.