HRB and Open Access:
A Funders Perspective
Patricia Clarke, HRB Senior Policy Analyst
Public sector funding flow to health care and research
Relationship between government departments and funders of health research in Ireland
Department of Health
Department of Health
Department of Finance
Department of Finance
Department of Education
& Skills
Department of Education
& Skills
Department of Jobs,
Enterprise & Innovation
Department of Jobs,
Enterprise & Innovation
Department of the
Environment Community &
Local Government
Department of the
Environment Community &
Local Government
Department of
Agriculture, Fisheries &
Food
Department of
Agriculture, Fisheries &
Food
2010 Health-related Research Expenditure
Research funding provider
Total R&D expenditure
2010
Health-related research
expenditure 2010
% of total spent on health-related
€ 000 € 000 %
Health Research Board 40,127 40,127 100
Science Foundation Ireland 171,290 73,169 42.7
Health Services Executive * * *
Higher Education Authority 111,292 36,859 33
Environmental Protection Agency 13,640 685 5
Marine Institute 9,660 1,470 15.2
IRCSET 25,600 3,551 13.9
IRCHSS 14,400 1,100 7.6
Dept. Health and Children 5,241 5,241 100
Dept. Agriculture, Food & Fisheries 15,260 4,920 32.2
Enterprise Ireland 93,460 14,641 15.6
Industrial Development Authority 56,668 23,039 40.7
TOTAL 556,638 205,001 36.8
HRB strategy – four strategic goals1. Drive the development of excellent clinical research
within a coherent health research system.
2. Build the capacity to conduct high-quality population health sciences and health services research.
3. Work with key partners to develop and manage high-quality national health information systems.
4. Generate evidence and promote the application of knowledge to support decision making by policy-makers and practitioners.
HRB Principles
• Publicly-funded research should be made available and accessible for public use as rapidly as possible
• Outputs should be peer reviewed
• Models and mechanisms used must be a cost-effective use of public funds
• Outputs must be preserved and remain accessible.
HRB position
Requires authors to maximise the opportunities to make their results available for free
Encourages authors to archive all research papers – funded in whole or in part by the HRB–in open access repositories as soon as possible following final publication
Encourages authors and publishers to licence research papers such that they may be freely copied and reused.
• 526 peer reviewed pubs
• 80% high/ med impact
• 1300 scientific meetings (52 Key notes)
• 380+ collaborations – 2/3rds internat.
• 112 novel techniques - 26 were new to the world
• 7 Clinician Scientists
• 84 post docs
• 106 post grad completions
• 25% in PHS and HSR
• 40 healthcare professionals up skilling
• 117 follow-on awards were secured by 41% of awardees
• 17 awards informed health policy
• 21 awardees appointed as policy advisors
• 30 awards improved treatments, services interventions & guidelines
• 18 awards developed innovations for health service delivery or cost savings
• 17 awards contributing to diagnostic assays, new treatments or diagnostic tools
• 14 patent applications
• 6 awardees got market development awards
• 2 licencing agreements & 2 start ups
• 10 formal business collaborations
2009- 2010 HRB Outputs
Grant Holder Pool 2000-2009• Total Number of grants = 1129 Number of unique grant holders =
735
• Researchers self-archive
• Journal OA costs not paid
JULIET database – 50+ Funders mandates including:
• UKPMC Funders Group
• NIH• HHMI• CIHR
Why is OA publication important for Funders
• Just funding the research is not enough – must ensure widest possible dissemination and unrestricted access to that research
• Allow links and integration of outputs with other resources ( new data mining techniques)
• Evaluation of funded research
• Preservation of digital record of health research
Greater access =greater impact of research
Issues to be resolved
Policies in place but to realise full potential of OA still need:
•More comprehensive and linked OA infrastructure
•Improved compliance
•Improved mechanisms for researchers to meet payments
•Clarification (and simplification) of publisher policy
•Clarifying re-use rights with regard to author manuscripts
46 HRB Host Institutions•Health Services•Charities•NGOs etc
Links to national picture
Access to Infrastructure
Improving compliance
• Problem in part – authors not self-archiving• Mitigated by awareness raising, and articulating
consequences of non-compliance…
• but ..in part, publishers not having workflows to support “author pays” model.• Elsevier – who have recently introduced an integrated OA
workflow – have seen significant increase in uptake of “Sponsored Documents”
Clarifying publishers’ OA policy
Nuances of policy – bewildering to the researcher
• No fee, no embargo – but full & immediate OA (e.g. BMJ research papers)
• No fee, full OA, but 6 months embargo (e.g. Rockefeller Press)• Author-side payment – fully compliant (e.g. Elsevier, Wiley)• Author side payments – NOT compliant (e.g. AJTMH)• Self-archiving – must archive author version (e.g. AAAS )• Self-archiving – must archive publisher version (e.g. NEJM)• Self archiving – not compliant (as embargo too long) (e.g. AAN)
/
Future Plans
HRB •Reviewing OA costs and infrastructure
• Preparing HRB policies on wider dissemination and on research data
National level • Funders Meeting June 2012
European level•ESF/ EMCR Science Policy Briefing Open Access in Biomedical Research July 2012 •Science Europe Working Group - Publication service models and costs, research data
Funder Initiatives
• Leadership – demonstrate engagement with issues, raise awareness and compliance in research community
• Fund – cost of publications. Estimated investment required to deliver full OA is 1-2% of research spend (marginal to research costs).
• Copyright – encourage (and eventually enforce) author retention (involve publishers)
• Evaluation – recognise intrinsic value of content of paper rather than title of journal
• OA research data