220 likes | 330 Views
What difference to the sustainability of open access can (a donor like) DFID make? . Matthew Harvey, UK Department for International Development (DFID) Contact: openaccess@dfid.gov.uk . What difference to the sustainability of open access can (a donor like) DFID make? .
E N D
What difference to the sustainability of open access can (a donor like) DFID make? Matthew Harvey, UK Department for International Development (DFID) Contact: openaccess@dfid.gov.uk
What difference to the sustainability of open access can (a donor like) DFID make? • Background to DFID and our interest in research and evidence • DFID and OA so far, focusing on DFID’s OA policy • DFID and the sustainability of OA into the future
1. DFID and research evidence • Activities framed by the MDGs • Work directly in 27 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East • Results focused • Increasingly evidence informed • Want to use the best available evidence in our policies and programmes
DFID’s Research and Evidence Division (RED) • £222m ($357m) in 2011-12 and rising spent on centrally commissioned research through RED • Research is also commissioned through DFID country offices and policy departments
RED’s mission • Identify and generate the best evidence, knowledge, technology and ideas to improve the effectiveness of development • Convey these to inform and influence policy, programmes and practice for poverty reduction • Both those of DFID and everyone else (global public good) • But for our activities to be properly evidence informed, we require access to the total evidence base • We also find ourselves on the wrong side of the access barrier!
2. DFID and open access so far … • Some programmes address some facets of open access • PERii (Programme for the Enhancement of Research Information) run by INASP • e.g. Journals Online; repository development; inclusion and visibility of developing countries within the open access community; bandwidth management training • MK4D open access advocacy programme • e.g. case studies on Brazil, South Africa and India to be published soon; webinar: ‘Open Access: are Southern voices being stifled?’ • DFID Research Open and Enhanced Access Policy
DFID Research Open and Enhanced Access Policy • Launched in July 2012, effective from 1 November • Open access: irrevocable and free online access by any user worldwide to full-text/full version scientific and scholarly material • Enhanced access: steps taken to help users find, view and download materials
The primary objectives are to: increase the number of research outputs that are open access increase information to help locate research outputs increase the accessibility of outputs
Some key features: • Access and accessibility • ‘Outputs’: journal articles, reports, books and book chapters, datasets, multi-media, websites, software, … • Access and Data Management Plan required for all projects • Associated costs included in research budget • Preference for gold over green OA • Self-archive within 6 months • Deposit datasets in an open access repository within 12 months of final data collection • DFID institutional repository: R4D (www.dfid.gov.uk/R4D/)
3. What next for DFID? • Basic choices: • Service our own policy (e.g. develop it, work on compliance) • + get involved in UK domestic and cross-government discussion • +/or get involved in international discussion • +/or develop a DFID OA strategy and associated activities that consider OA as an issue in its own right #4 is (perhaps) the obvious choice for maximum support to OA and OA sustainability
A DFID OA strategy and associated activities framed by sustainability? • OA is sustainable when: the ideal of open access is met, and the new system endures, not slipping back to the (more closed) current or past situation, or collapsing entirely • At what point in the entire system could and should DFID intervene to support OA sustainability?
Limiting conditions: • OA not an end in itself • Continued interest requires demonstrable/plausible impact on poverty reduction • Budget (up to, say, a few million US$?) • DFID staff (say, 25% of a person?) • So, what to do?
Each combination lends itself to a different type of activity • Capacity building • Convening • Bank-rolling (e.g journals, repositories, APCs) • Seed-funding to users or providers to stimulate market • Awareness raising • Debating, discussing, lobbying • Policy/regulation development • Research (e.g. on impacts, best practice, business models, …) • ICT infrastructure building • …
What difference to the sustainability of open access can (a donor like) DFID make? • So what to do? • What criteria should be applied to all these options in order to prioritise them? • How can we assess the actual or likely impact of all the options? • Ideas gratefully received!