Funding Model For Open Access Unveiled

The distribution of more than £100 million in research council funding for open access article fees will be directly proportional to how much universities have charged the councils for direct labour costs over the last three years.

Research Councils UK announced the long-awaited allocations on Thursday afternoon, after pledging in July to provide universities with block grants to help them pay the article charges required by journals to make papers freely available instantly, under the “gold” open access model.

The transition of UK higher education to a largely gold open access publishing model was recommended by the Finch report earlier this year, and was accepted by the government. The report estimated that the cost of transitioning to such a model could cost the UK sector an extra £60 million a year, mostly in additional publishing fees...