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NIHR launches stakeholder survey to open access policy

Published: 29 September 2020

The NIHR has today launched a six-week stakeholder survey as part of an ongoing review into possible changes to its open access policy for peer-reviewed publications.

As England’s largest public funder of health and social care research, we believe open access – making published academic research freely and permanently available online – has the potential to maximise the impact and enhance the integrity and rigour of the research we fund through greater openness and transparency.

Closing on 10 November 2020, the survey is designed to find out what you feel are the opportunities and barriers of open access, strengths and weaknesses of the current NIHR open access policy, and to gather feedback on new policy proposals .

We will also be holding virtual workshops on 15 October and 19 October 2020 for public contributors to tell us what they think.

All stakeholder feedback will help to shape our work in this area.

Making open access fit for the future

NIHR’s current open access policy came into force in 2014. In 2018, a review was instigated to examine the clarity and effectiveness of the policy and whether it is fit for the future. We have been gathering evidence from a wide variety of sources and working closely with partners and stakeholders on this issue. This summer, the Government has reiterated its commitment to open access in the R&D Roadmap.

We know that public voices have not always been central in debates on open access principles, and our public contributor workshops seek to address this

We recognise that there are various routes to disseminating research findings, with publishing peer-reviewed research articles being just one of these, and we support a diversity of dissemination approaches to ensure that the NIHR-funded research achieves maximal societal, academic and economic impact.

Find out more about our open access policy review, the survey and the virtual workshops.

 

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