Pathways to Open Access - Open Access Good Practice pathfinder project final report

The final project report of the Pathways to Open Access pathfinder project, part of Jisc's open access good practice initiative, which ended in July 2016. The project involved UCL (lead), Newcastle University and the University of Nottingham. Research funders increasingly require outputs they fund to be made open access. The multiplicity of funder, publisher and institutional policies has created a confusing landscape for institutions, researchers, research funders themselves, and publishers. The Pathways to Open Access project has considered some of the key issues in institutional implementation of research funders’ policies from the point of view of three different UK HEIs, of differing research intensity and differing levels of APC payments, from three different regions: University College London, Nottingham University and Newcastle University. Through workshops, community consultation and investigation of different practices at the three HEIs involved in the project, the project has delivered an analysis of institutional practices in the areas of advocacy, exceptions to the REF Open Access Policy and institutional block grants for Gold open access, along with best practice recommendations and suggestions for future work to assist institutions in managing funders’ open access mandates. The project team has taken into account developments in the sector over the course of the project including the amendments to the REF Open Access Policy in July 2015, the start of the REF Policy in April 2016, an increased focus on compliance and licence requirements on the part of the Wellcome Trust, and the development of new tools for recording and reporting compliance, including Jisc Monitor