HEFCE open access letter

Commenting on HEFCE’s letter on open access in the REF post-2014, Dr Wendy Piatt, Director General of the Russell Group, said: 

“We very much welcome the fact that HEFCE are consulting on proposals for the role of open-access publishing in submissions to the REF post-2014. 

“We have always said we are committed to open access. The green route should be considered as a viable and cost-effective approach for delivering open access, alongside the gold route.

“We are therefore pleased that at the current time HEFCE is proposing to allow both gold and green options, with no preference for gold over green. 

“However, it is impossible to determine up front whether or not an individual publication is likely to be submitted to a future REF. Making all research publications open access at the point of publication could be prohibitively costly — especially for the most research-intensive universities. We will be looking for HEFCE to offer a reasonable degree of flexibility in what it will allow in future REF submissions (and we are pleased that HEFCE appear to be considering providing flexibility on this point). 

“We look forward to engaging with HEFCE as they develop their policy in this important area.”