RCUK Policy on Open Access – composite guidance

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Manager

Research Councils UK’s (RCUK) new open access policy, which comes in to effect in about three weeks’ time on 1 April, has been a source of some confusion. So it is welcome to see that today they published a guidance document and will take requests for further clarity on this over the next fortnight.

The document is available here (PDF).

The notes emphasise that the policy will be reviewed next year – including any significant problems arising, such as on the sustainability of Learned Societies – and that RCUK consider the next five years being a transitional period, with 100% compliance not expected in the short term. It also highlights that authors ought still to retain a great degree of freedom in their choice of where to publish. However, it emphasises throughout that RCUK’s preference is for articles to be published with immediate, gold open access, with as few restrictions on re-use as possible.

Some of the key points to note are:

• This iteration of the policy does not mandate open access to research data. However, all papers must communicate how any applicable data and other underlying research information can be accessed.
• The Research Councils plan to increase the funding available for open access over the five-year transitional period.
• They expect a market for Article Processing Charges (APCs) to develop, with a nudge towards researchers and institutions to note that the REF does not use journal impact factors as an assessment tool.
• Authors may publish by the green open access route if they wish, as long as the delay (embargo) between publication and open access does not exceed six months, or 12 months for arts, humanities and social sciences. However, during the transition period there is a caveat through which this may be extended:
  • Where researchers do not have access to APC funding for their preferred gold open access journal during the transition, they are encouraged to look at cheaper options in the first instance, followed by a green option with a compliant embargo policy. If there are no feasible options, the paper may be published in a 12 month embargo journal, or 24 months for arts, humanities and social sciences. This PowerPoint slide illustrates this.
  • The exception is biomedicine, as the MRC already mandates embargos of no longer than six months.
• Where the gold route is used with Research Council funding, the paper must be freely available under a CC BY licence to allow maximum, attributed reuse. Where the green route is used, CC BY is preferred, but CC BY NC is allowable, as are publisher-specific policies that allow text and data mining and support RCUK’s key aims.
• RCUK grant and fellowship awards which commence after the start date for the revised policy – 1 April 2013 – will not include funding for APCs.

Timeline:
First year of policy: 45% compliance targeted
Second year: 50%
Fifth year: 100%, with 75% delivered through immediate, gold open access and CC BY licencing.

To provide further input, you are invited to email Alexandra Saxon by Wednesday 20 March. Alternatively, you can contribute to the Society of Biology sectoral response by Wednesday 13 March, by emailing me.

This comes shortly after HEFCE published a letter (PDF) which calls for early input to help shape a formal consultation on the role of open access in post-2014 iterations of the Research Excellence Framework. HEFCE will develop the four UK funding bodies’ joint policy and state that they intend to make OA mandatory for submitted outputs. However, they do not intend to state a preference for gold over green open access. One of the questions on which they invite advice is whether it would be feasible to make open access to data a formal requirement too, although they state that while they expect to see progress in this area from REF 2014, they do not expect to make it a formal requirement yet. The deadline for responses to the letter is Monday 25 March. Once again, you can contribute to the Society of Biology sectoral response by Monday 18 March, by emailing me.

Finally, if you’ve made it this far, you may be interested to subscribe to the Society of Biology’s Research Communication Newsletter. The first edition can be found here and to subscribe you can email policy@societyofbiology.org

Policy job at the Biochemical Society and Society of Biology

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Manager

The Biochemical Society, in partnership with the Society of Biology, is appointing a new full-time Science Policy Officer. It’s a one year, full time position, with the possibility of extension. You can find full details here.

Closing date: 09:00, 4 March

This does, sadly, indicate that I am leaving Charles Darwin House at the start of April. I will be taking up a newly created position in the Equality Challenge Unit team (the coordinators of the Athena SWAN Charter). Until then, please do continue to contact me on science policy issues – I’ll update this page with the details of my successor when they start!

Update: 4 April – Catherine Ball has been appointed and is working across the two societies. You can contact her at catherineball@societyofbiology.org  or catherine.ball@biochemistry.org

Recent reading – science, careers, gender, policy and a look forward

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

This is an abridged collation of some of the interesting reading I came across/finally got round to over the Christmas break.

Careers and science

• Steve Caplan, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska, questions whether the increasing focus on ‘translational research’ will restrict the next generation from asking the fundamental questions in basic science – and why this is dangerous.
• … Elsewhere, he argues that despite a lack of academic careers (relative to the number of PhD positions) we should train more students to PhD level if we also improve their training – not just preparing them for academic careers. (I tend to refer to this as ‘PhD 2.0’.) He also highlights this Individual Development Plan tool from AAAS’ Science Careers.
• Science Insider reports that a blogger who exposes scientific fraud has stopped posting following legal threats. Paul Brookes, Associate Professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center, hopes to set up a new site with his real name behind it. (In related news, Fang Shi-min – a freelance science journalist and biochemist – recently shared the inaugural John Maddox prize for uncovering scientific fraud in China.)
• Times Higher Education publishes an article highlighting a US study, which argues that international groups of scholars bring complementary skills and ideas that aid research, resulting in a greater number of papers, which – in turn – are more highly cited.
• The BBSRC will announce full details of two schemes to support the translation of new ideas in biotechnology and bioenergy into commercial applications this month. Both will aim to foster industrial collaboration.
• Christine Fernandez, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, summarises a workshop which gave eight tips to publish high impact.

Women in science

• The organisers of the SpotOn London conference compile a useful selection of resources for female scientists looking to raise their profiles online (some also apply to men).
• Curt Rice, Vice President for Research & Development at the University of Tromsø, writes a great article about how quotas raise quality, and how diversity is about more than social justice. He also includes a succinct account of the ‘paradox of meritocracy’.
• The House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Committee take oral evidence for their Women in the Workplace inquiry. The transcript of the session with Dame Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell (Chair of the Royal Society of Edinburgh inquiry into Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Kate Sloyan (Institute of Physics 2012 Very Early Career Woman Physicist of the Year Award winner), and Helen Wollaston and Trudy Norris Grey (both of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Campaign) is worth reading.

Science for the economy

• David Docherty, Chief Executive of the Council For Industry and Higher Education, summarises the Growing Value report (PDF), which urges the government to make sustained, ‘steady-handed’, strategic commitments to research; prioritising collaboration between universities and business, and entrepreneurism.
• The Technology Strategy Board explain that the biosciences are a priority for them because they “could form the basis of a new technical revolution” (PDF, from page 12). They outline the opportunities for business and the challenges for innovation.

Openness

• Curt Rice (again), summarises a recently published paper on Open Evaluation, arguing that changes to how we evaluate are essential to the Open Access movement.
• The latest issue of The Journal of the Foundation for Science and Technology (PDF) features articles on implementing the Finch Report from Professor Sir John Enderby, as well as an article from Julian Huppert MP about how he uses social media. There is also a piece by Professor Pete Downes (former Chair of the Biochemical Society Policy Committee) about how universities can catalyse innovation. Crucially, he highlights that we must produce graduates who understand this and are interested.

The policy process

• Kirsty Newman (from the Department for International Development, but writing on her personal blog) says that when looked at in the right context, policy making processes need not be complex or complicated to engage with.

And finally…

• Nature has published a forward look at what they see the key stories of 2013 being, including the results of a clinical trial which uses human embryonic stem cells.

Getting robots to do agri-science (or George Osborne’s 8 priorities for science)

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

George Osborne gave a speech at the Royal Society this morning, in which he highlighted eight research prriorities:

1. Data driven discovery
2. Synthetic biology
3. Regenerative medicine
4. Agri-science
5. Energy storage
6. Advanced materials and nanotechnology
7. Robotics
8. Satellites and space

Sarah Castell jokingly suggested that we could kill two birds with one stone:

Let's get the robots to do the agri-science, two priorities in one hit. #Osbornesci

—
Sarah Castell (@sarahcastell) November 09, 2012

You can read a transcript of the speech here. I wasn’t there, so my impressions of the juicy part – the Q&A session – have been gleaned from the Twitter feed. The impression one gets from this is that Osborne didn’t really give satisfactory answers to questions on the migrant cap, the 4G campaign and more. It is fairly clear that the Treasury still does not couple sustained investment in science with economic growth, which is why we need to keep making the case for this.

And what if your research has not been deemed a priority? What about investing in people and skills? The government needs to recognise that the it is not enough to fund research; rather the overall basic research system must be protected. As Kieron Flanagan (Lecturer in Science and Technology Policy as the University of Manchester) has argued, “many of the social and economic benefits of research actually stem from the health and dynamism of the ‘system’ and not from the the impacts of specific bits of research.”

P.S. I’ve been writing more at the Biochemical Society blog recently. You can check it out here: http://biochemicalsociety.wordpress.com/

Update: You can now listen to speech and Q&A session here: http://royalsociety.org/news/2012/osborne-at-royal-society/?utm_source=social_media&utm_medium=hootsuite&utm_campaign=standard

A Busy Week: Biology Week, an extended Ada Lovelace Day and Libel Reform

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

As the first ever Biology Week draws to a close – although not before I take part in a world record attempt this afternoon – we can reflect on what has been a very successful week all round. On Monday, our two Lunchbox roundtable series combined for a special joint event on the future of research careers. On Tuesday I was fortunate enough to attend Ada Lovelace Day Live! at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, a remarkable variety evening featuring an array of entertaining and inspiring female role models involved in science and engineering. My personal highlights were Sarah Angliss’ robot/theramin performance (oh yes) and the delightful compèring of Helen Arney, who’s science-based comedy and singing is a real treat. I also discovered ‘The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage’, a comic drawn by the extremely talented Sydney Padua.

The celebration of Ada Lovelace did not end on the ‘official’ day either, with fringe events still taking place. This afternoon sees the Royal Society host a women in science Wikipedia workshop and edit-a-thon (subsequent article about this available here) followed by a panel discussion led by Uta Frith FRS. And last night the Science Grrl calendar – which aims to showcase the ‘real face of female scientists’ – was launched at the Science Museum. You can find out more and purchase one here.

In other news, this week also saw Ed Miliband become the first leader of a major party to support the campaign to reform the libel laws of England and Wales, which is being driven by English PEN, Index on Censorship and our friends at Sense About Science, who we also met this week to discuss their work in plant science and GM. I’ve written a little about the campaign on the Society of Biology’s blog previously.

With this being such a busy time, it was unsurprising that I ended up missing out on something, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the week: the RVC Late event at the Royal Veterinary College last night. As an anatomist by training I was very disappointed to miss the horse dissection demonstration and lecture on epilepsy, as well as the chance to explore the museum. But at least I still have the world record attempt to join in with!

On the road with BBSRC

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

BBSRC will shortly be holding a number of consultation events to review progress in delivering the current Strategic Plan and consider ‘opportunities for the future’.  This pleasingly open-ended brief means that these events could be very interesting and informative, as well as giving participants the opportunity to make their voice heard.

Going on the road to Cambridge (4 Oct), Bristol (12 Oct), Manchester(30 Oct), Glasgow (20 Nov) and London (28 Nov although unfortunately fully booked) will be:

• Douglas Kell (Chief Executive)
• Melanie Welham (Director of Science as of 1 October) and
• Celia Caulcott (Director of Innovation and Skills).

Further details, including how to register, are available at BBSRC’s website. If you’re coming to Manchester, do say hello. I’ll also be reporting back afterwards, and the slides from the presentations will be made available online.

Impact

BBSRC have also just made an announcement regarding a set of competitions on ‘Fostering Innovation’. Whilst ‘Innovator of the year‘ and ‘Excellence with impact‘ are not new, ‘Activating impact‘ is, and will make awards to Knowledge Exchange/Commercialisation/Transfer teams. The rationale behind this is explained in this FAQ document (PDF). It will be interesting to see how well-received it is, but represents an interesting foray into this area.

Impact fans may be interested to know that the press release contains the word ‘impact’ 18 times!

Staying connected

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

Following some interesting feedback we received from a survey of our members on gender equality issues and what the Society should be doing to support and celebrate women in science, coupled with discussions amongst our staff and Meetings Board and suggestions I have picked up during my long-running interest in gender equality in science, the Society has just launched a new grant scheme. The Stay Connected Bursaries will support the attendance of scientists with young children at our conferences from the start of next year – including those on parental leave, and those who require the attendance of a partner to look after a young child. We hope that this small step will go part way to overcoming one of the many challenges that scientists face in balancing a career with having a family; helping them to keep up to date with current research and maintain and develop contacts.

The introduction of this scheme follows the recent changes to our conference proposal guidelines (Focused Meeting proposal linked as an example), which now state that we aspire to a 40% female speaker representation, and that at least 25% of the invited speakers should always be women. This should also help to boost opportunities for newer investigators, amongst whom women are more readily represented.

Celebrating women in science

Our ability to bring these issues to the forefront of our policy considerations has been helped by top-level buy-in. This is widely recognised – not just in scientific organisations – as being a vital component of achieving sustainable change. Next year is the 100^th anniversary of the admittance of the Society’s first female members and throughout the year the Society is organizing a variety of events, activities and initiatives to celebrate women in biochemistry and across science. Most of these have been informed by the survey These activities will take place across our departments, so keep an eye on our website over the next few months and into 2013.

Whilst I’m on the subject of celebration, Ada Lovelace Day is fast approaching, this year to be held in conjunction with the Women’s Engineering Society. Featuring performances from Helen Arney, Dr Suzie Sheehy, Gia Milinovich, Dr Helen Scales, Helen Keen, Dr Alice Bell, Sarah Angliss and Sydney Padua, the Institution of Engineering and Technology will host this celebration of the achievements of women in STEM on October 16. It should be a fun night and bring inspiring role models to the fore, a simple solution which still plays an important part in encouraging women to stay in science. The organisers are also using a crowdsourcing site to raise money in order to create a charitable organisation, securing the long-term future of the event and expanding the group’s activities. You can find out more about Ada Lovelace Day at the Finding Ada blog.

Athena SWAN awards need more judges

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

The Athena SWAN Charter is rising in profile all the time, especially now that research funding is starting to be dependent on institutions possessing the associated awards. The Equality Challenge Unit, who administer the scheme, expect a considerable increase in applications for the next round of awards, which will be judged in early 2013.

Athena SWAN awards are awarded to universities or individual departments who demonstrate a commitment to embedding best practise regarding gender equality, with a focus on STEM subjects. To date, only two Gold applications (Silver and Bronze awards may also be applied for) have been successful – the Chemistry departments at the Universities of York and Edinburgh are invited to take a bow.

My experience of sitting on a judging panel in the previous round was very positive. There is a time commitment – I may have been slowed down by the fact that it was my first time – up to eight applications are discussed by each panel, and these fairly weighty documents must be read in advance in preparation for a day-long panel discussion session in London. In return, you get expenses paid, lunch (featuring sushi when I attended) and an invite to the awards ceremony. Crucially, however, you also get an insight into the practises of a variety of universities and departments – best practise to learn from and a closer look at the more dubiously received policies that some institutions have in place. For panellists based in universities, this can be a useful way of reflecting on their own institutions.

I have written fairly extensively on the subject of gender equality in science, both in this blog and in our members’ magazine, The Biochemist. But it is through respected and practical schemes such as the Athena SWAN Charter (which the Biochemical Society co-funds) that the difference is really made.

If you have an awareness of the issues facing women in STEM and are interested in becoming a panellist, please email athenaswan@ecu.ac.uk to sign up or ask for more details. Panellists are taken from a wide range of backgrounds and men are especially invited to step forward, as they are currently in the minority on judging panels.

ESOF – European parallels, career tips, and a new peer review guide

This blog post was written by James Lush, the Biochemical Society’s Policy Officer

I attended ESOF (the Euroscience Open Forum) on Friday, in the fair city of Dublin. I took a lot away from it (not least that riding a Vespa to Gatwick isn’t a very good idea). As I’m shortly to take the best part of three weeks off for the Olympics, I will have plenty of food for thought, particularly on careers, on which I attended a number of sessions.

ESOF is a huge, biennial behemoth (the next one will be held in Copenhagen) but in a good way – I was very impressed. On Friday, the sessions ran from 8:00 to 18:30, with around ten parallel sessions at a time and no designated breaks (I took the opportunity of a Bob Geldof keynote to duck out and get a sandwich). The UK is perhaps not as engaged in the European science ideal as other countries, but on first reflection, I noted that many of the discussions were similar to those going on in the UK. Here are my scribbles from Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s keynote speech, the current European Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science (excuse the roughness):

• Politicians should deploy the scientific method whenever possible, need to remind of that
• Science vital for future – and intellectual inquiry will always explore most profound ideas
• Higgs – excitement across all ages, groups and countries
• Challenge-driven research important, but curiosity-driven research leads to great discoveries – silicon chips (Bohr), WWW
• Challenge-driven research also brings fundamental benefits – e.g. aero wings and fluid dynamics
• Horizon 2020 – not everyone happy with large settlement, so keep making the case
• ERA – single market for ideas in Europe – increased competition and cooperation between member states (existing example of CERN). Goes live soon. Another important strand is Open Access. Need everyone to line up behind ERA – will deliver science excellence for Europe. Will rely on political will and trust
• March of progress will rely on centrality of science and public trust – must communicate well e.g. on synthetic biology (the same day, ‘A synthetic biology roadmap for the UK‘ was published)
• Thriving intersectoral ecosystem is necessary for solving problems
• Already examples of successful collaborations and things going on in background – Grand Challenges a good and relatively cheap way of stimulating it
• DARPA – $1m for driverless car. Led to many partnerships
• Human Genome Project – for each $ spent, $140 generated
• Open access will help collaboration. People cannot always be co-located, but could be huge enabling factor – individuals, poorer countries, SMEs – which then pump money back into local community – more tax – more research funding…
• Should we be aiming to get tangible outputs back from publicly funded research?
• We must support both forms of research. This is where ideal spin-off situation arises
• Can’t aim to capitalise on specific things before know what outcomes will be.

Elsewhere, I heard some interesting tips from Dr Silvia Giordani from Trinity College Dublin on careers:

1. “Change is good… Being crazy is rewarded in the end.”
2. “Learn as much as you can early, and you can put it together later.”
3. “Network, network, network!”

Peer review guide launched

The previous day, Sense About Science launched their ‘Peer Review: The nuts and bolts’ guide at the conference. Despite the quickening evolution of the publishing landscape, peer review – as I heard at a recent(ish) meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee – remains the gold standard for determining the soundness of scientific papers, and misconceptions (particularly about open access journals) can be damaging.

The guide was produced by Sense About Science’s Voice of Young Science network, and provides a quick reference how peer-review works and how to do it. Helpfully, it features guidance from both sides of the fence – both editors and scientists at different stages of their careers, as well as other observers such as James Randerson from the Guardian. It is definitely recommended reading, although it acknowledges that formal training in the art of reviewing is variable in amount and availability.

If you were at ESOF too, let me know!

Peer Review: The nuts and bolts (PDF): http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/resources/99/Peer-review_The-nuts-and-bolts.pdf
Further reading (Science Careers blog): Become a Reviewer: Advancing and Contributing in the Scientific Establishment

BBSRC consultation: digital organisms

This post first appeared at the BiochemSoc blog

The BBSRC is inviting the UK bioscience community to help guide the development of a ‘digital organisms’ strategy, building on their previous investments in systems biology. To do this they are running an online consultation which will help inform an expert working group, who are aiding policy development. The short consultation is available online. 

The survey is open to all researchers active in academia or industry and they hope to collect responses from researcher at all stages of their careers and from all disciplines. The survey is open until Monday 3 September. There is further information on the BBSRC website and if you require any further information please contact mark.roberts2@bbsrc.ac.uk