Open access and the Wellcome Trust - mandate effective from 1st October 2006

["Kiley ,Robert" <r.kiley@wellcome.ac.uk>]

>From 1st October 2006 it is a requirement on all Wellcome 
Trust-funded researchers to ensure that any research papers 
arising from Trust funded research, that have been accepted for 
publication in a peer-reviewed journal, are made freely 
accessible from the PubMed Central repository (and UKPMC once 
established) as soon as possible, and in any event within six 
months of the journal publishers official date of final 
publication.

In developing this policy the Trust has made it clear to its 
grantees that it would always prefer the final, published version 
of the article (which includes all the changes made during the 
peer review process and modifications made during copy-editing, 
and proofing stages) to be made available in PMC and UKPMC at the 
time of publication.  To help realise this objective the Trust 
has provided additional funding to its grant holders to cover OA 
article-processing charges, and strongly encourages them to make 
use of this option where it exists.

In order for the Wellcome Trust to cover the cost of an open 
access fee the publisher has to agree to:

* Deposit, on behalf of the author, the final version of the 
manuscript - which includes all the changes that arise from the 
peer-review, copy-editing and proofing processes - in PubMed 
Central (PMC), where it must be made freely available at the time 
of publication. A link to the article on the publisher site is 
not sufficient.

* Deposit the article in XML. The deposited version must either 
be in the NLM Journal Archiving DTD format, or in a DTD which can 
be programmatically converted to the NLM Journal Archiving DTD. 
If the publisher cannot supply XML, please contact the Trust for 
advice.

* Deposit all high-resolution images used in the article.

* Allow such articles to be mirrored to PMC International 
repositories, such as UKPMC.

* Permit these articles to be freely accessed and re-purposed, 
subject to agreed limits (for example, the commercial rights to 
the article would most likely continue to reside with the 
publisher). For an example of acceptable use, see the Creative 
Commons, Attribution-Non Commercial Licence, Version 2.5 
<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/>.

In addition to the mandatory requirements above, the Trust 
encourages the Publisher to:

* Deposit the publisher PDF version of the article in PMC.

* Make the article freely available on the publisher website at 
the time of publication

If a publisher does not offer an open access option, then 
Wellcome-funded papers can still be accepted by the publisher 
providing they allow the author manuscript to be deposited and 
made available via PMC/UKPMC, within 6 months of publication.

If a publisher does not provide an open access option, nor allow 
the author to self-archive their manuscript and make it available 
within 6 months of publication, then the author should not submit 
the manuscript to that journal.

To help our researchers identify whether a journal has a 
publishing/self-archiving policy that is compliant with our grant 
conditions the Trust has commissioned the University of 
Nottingham to develop the SHERPA/RoMEO 
<http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php?all=yes> database to answer 
this specific question.  If the information held in SHERPA about 
your journals is incorrect, please notify the database 
administrator immediately (mailto:jane.h.smith@nottingham.ac.uk)

Full details of the policy - including a Publishers Guide and FAQ 
- can be found at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/oa/publishers

Robert Kiley
Head of e-Strategy
Wellcome Library.
210, Euston Road, London. NW1 2BE
Tel: 020 7611 8338; Fax: 020 7611 8703; mailto:r.kiley@wellcome.ac.uk
Library Web site: http://library.wellcome.ac.uk

The Wellcome Trust is a registered charity, no. 210183. Its sole 
Trustee is the Wellcome Trust Limited, a company registered in 
England, no 2711000, whose registered office is 215 Euston Road, 
London, NW1 2BE.