A presentation by Daisy Robert of the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) at the 2015 biennial Taylor & Francis Editors Indaba on 20 March in Midrand

1. Panel Discussion: Role of Policy in guiding
development.
Taylor & Francis 2015 African Editorial Indaba
20 March Gallagher Estates
Daisy Selematsela (PhD)
Knowledge Management Corporate

2. NRF OA Statement reflection:
• International Council for Science (ICSU)
– Provided input & endorsed ICSU OA Statement
– unites representatives of 120 national scientific
academies and 31 international scientific unions
• 5 key goals for open access, and
• 12 recommendations
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3. NRF OA Statement reflection:
• ICSU five goals
– access to the scientific record should be free of
financial barriers for any researcher to contribute
to;
– free of financial barriers for any user to access
immediately on publication;
– made available without restriction on reuse for
any purpose, subject to proper attribution;
– quality‐assured and published in a timely manner;
– and archived and made available in perpetuity.
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4. Africa Global Research Council activities
• 24 November 2011 (South Africa)
• Theme: Principles for global merit (peer) review – Eastern,
Central & Southern African Countries workshop
• Objective: “develop a foundation for international scientific
collaboration, elucidating acceptable merit review principles
with a subsequent goal of establishing mechanisms that put
them in place “ – inspired virtual GRC formation
• Countries: Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Uganda, Zambia, US (National Science Foundation)
• Co‐hosted:
– US NSF
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5. Africa Global Research Council activities
• 22 ‐ 23 March 2012 (South Africa)
• Theme: New approaches to international
peer review
• Objective: to contribute towards the NSF‐
initiated Global Merit Review process
• Co‐hosted:
– Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU)
• 25 organisations represented
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6. Africa Global Research Council activities
• 29 November 2012 (Addis Ababa)
• 1st Africa GRC Regional meeting
• Theme: “Integrating National Science Institutions with
Regional and Global initiatives: Open Access and Research
Integrity”.
• Objective: to obtain inputs to best practices and standards
on research integrity and open access for publications in the
African region;
– Outputs to serve as preparation for the annual GRC global meeting of
May 2013 (Berlin)
• Co‐hosted:
– TWAS, AU, USA NSF & German Research Foundation
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7. Africa Global Research Council activities
• Oct/Dec 2013 ‐ GRC global participatory
process (5 regional meetings Africa, the
Americas, Asia, Europe, Middle East/North
Africa)
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8. Africa Global Research Council activities
• 25 – 26 November 2013 (South Africa)
• 2nd Africa GRC Regional meeting
• Objectives:
– Consider Review template for implementation of GRC Open Access
Action Plan (supplemented by the background document Action plan
towards open access to publications endorsed at Berlin Summit).
– Consider Statement of principles for funding the future.
– Participants:
• AU, Kenya (NCST), CODESRIA, China (CAS), Japan (JSPS), Lesotho,
USA (NSF), South African Young Academy of Science (SAYAS) and
SA (NRF)
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9. Africa Global Research Council activities
• May 2014 – 3rd Global Research Council
Summit, Beijing – OA Action Plan and Review
Template (country inputs)
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10. Africa Global Research Council activities
• 23 – 25 November 2014 (South Africa)
• 3rd Africa Regional Consultation of the Global Research
Council
• Theme:
– “Research Funding for Scientific Breakthrough” and
– “Building Research and Education Capacity”
• Co‐hosted:
– South Africa (NRF) and Namibia (Namibian Council on Research, Science
and Technology ‐ NCRST).
• Participants:
– 26 Heads of Africa Research Councils / representatives
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11. 4th Global Research Council Annual Meeting
• 26 – 28 May 2015 (Japan)
• Theme:
– “Research Funding for Scientific Breakthrough” and
– “Building Research and Education Capacity”
• Co‐host: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and
the National Research Foundation (NRF)
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12. NRF OA Statement reflection:
• Global Research Council
– Funding agencies – important role in initiating &
shaping OA transition
– Success of Gold/Green Route depends on the
understanding/readiness of the research
community
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13. Principles of a transition???
• How the transition to
OA can be initiated?
• How the evolving OA
environment can be
sustained after the
transition phase?
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14. Transition to OA requires actions
from other stakeholders:
NRF Recognised Institutions
Universities
Research Libraries
Scholarly Associations
Publishing Houses

15. What a Funding Agency is expected to
do!
• By recommending/requiring OA to publicly
funded research results
– Ensure investment has optimal impact on science and
society
– Requires thorough monitoring of funded publications
and related costs
– Ensure research data whether already in existence/yet
to be produced is accessible
• research data “ factual records used as primary sources for
scientific research…commonly accepted in scientific
community necessary to validate research findings. A
research data set constitutes a systematic, partial
representation of the subject being investigated ”
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16. Elements of transition to OA
• Funders expected to pickup suggestions
(action plans) which it can implement in
accordance with its general working principles
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17. What Funding Agencies can do!
• Develop open access
statement/policies
• Address copyright
• explains reasons to have research
results made openly available.
• Important guidance for all
grantees.
• Funding guidelines modified in a
manner that prevents researchers
to transfer copyright exclusively
to a publisher.
• Provide legal basis for deposit of
research articles in an OA
repository.
• Within a grant proposal, allow
grantees to apply for an
earmarked budget to cover
publication fees etc.
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18. What Funding Agencies can do!
• Cover publication fees
• Contribute to central
publication funds
• Within a grant proposal,
allow grantees to apply
for an earmarked budget
to cover publication fees
etc.
• Publication fees not given
to researchers directly
but to university as
contribution to a central
OA publication fund.
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19. What Funding Agencies can do!
• Reimburse publication
costs after grant expiry
• Be clear on numbers
and statistics
• Decision on whether to
apply for
reimbursement of OA
publications charges
after grant period is
expired?
• A clear picture on how
much budget is spent
for OA publication fees.
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20. What Funding Agencies can do!
• Define re‐use rights
• Support open access journals
run by academia
• agree on specific criteria that
need to be fulfilled for the
reimbursement of article fees!
– re‐use of OA articles as
defined by CC‐BY licenses.
• ONLY then researchers' will be
able to exploit full potential of
digital publications, including
text and data mining.
• Consider options to support
OA journals sustained by
institutional/organisational
funding
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21. What Funding Agencies can do!
• Share costs with fellow
agencies
• Much research is
carried out in
international teams
whose work is funded
by a variety of agencies.
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22. Research performers/Univ.
Management & Libraries involvement
• Define open access policies
• Nominate contact persons for OA
• Operate an OA repositories
• Enable universities to calculate
• Enable Univ. to build publication budgets
• Correlate subscription licenses with OA
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23. Researchers, Scholarly Associations,
Students involvement
• Raise awareness and
support knowledge and
acceptance of OA
• Make authors think
about costs and quality
• Define payment
schemes for authors
unable to pay
• Educate students on
scholarly publishing
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24. Publisher involvement
• Be clear on conditions of
self‐archiving‐
Sherpa/RoMEO
• Define services –
expected and want to buy
• Facilitate dealing with the
practicalities of billing for
OA
• Enable the transition
• Initiate earmarked
funding programmes – i.e
existing journal
subscriptions are
switched into OA journals
• Revisit the hybrid model
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25. Government /Industry/Public
involvement
• Consider national
copyright regulations
• OA polices that support
commercial re‐use of
research results
• Contribution to
dissemination costs
• Conversations with
Public regarding
benefits of OA to
society as a whole!
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26. What NRF OA Statement is about!
• Not intended to place restrictions on type of
publications to place on IR
• Will not routinely check compliance with Cis –
institution responsible (DA’s)
• Material published in respect of NRF funded
research activity be included in IR, non‐
inclusion provided in Final Grant Report by Cis.
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27. What NRF OA Statement is about!
• Not intended to apply to research data
gathered for the purpose of commercialisation
of research outcomes, or
• To research data that are the property of a
private sector entity
• Compatibility of technical & procedural
standards – relevant international data &
documentation standards (interdisciplinary
access to & use of research data).
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28. Thank you
•
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