1. Funding and sustainability: the Wellcome Trust perspective
Chris Bird
Wellcome Trust
@chrisbird69

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The Wellcome Trust
a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health
we support the brightest minds in biomedical sciences and medical humanities in the UK and overseas
a long-term commitment to research and capacity building in Africa – aim to enable research targeted to local health needs
a passionate commitment to maximising access to research outputs (including research papers and data)

3. The Trust’s open access policy
“All research papers – funded in whole or in part by the Wellcome Trust – must be made freely accessible from the PubMed Central and UKPMC repositories as soon as possible, and in any event within six months of the journal publisher’s official date of final publication”

4. Building sustainability: Funding
Publication costs are part of the research costs
Provide funding to institutions to cover OA funding
WT spend on OA publishing is around £4m a year
If 100% of WT research was published via “gold”, it would represent approx. 1.5% of our annual research spend
1.5% of £650m = £9.75m

5. Building sustainability: supporting open access infrastructure
providing dedicated funding to institutions to meet OA costs
building the Europe PubMed Central resource
working with publishers to ensure their processes enable and support compliance
raising awareness of the benefits of OA in the research community
announcing a new top-tier, open access e-journal with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Max Planck Society

7. “Ground-breaking science, selected by experts, published without delay, open for greater influence”
a collaboration between world-class funders and the research community to improve research communication
an editorial process that reduces revision cycles and accelerates the publication of new findings
an open-access journal for highly influential work, from basic to translational, applied, and clinical research
a showcase for innovation in the presentation and assessment of research
A platform to maximize the reach and influence of new research and to advance the careers of researchers
These are the key features of eLife, and what makes this project unique within research communication
Supported by

9. Strengthening our policy
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Strengthening our policy
compliance rate around 55% - still disappointingly low
to address this, we have decided to:
introduce specific sanctions to increase researcher compliance
ensure where we pay an open access fee, license terms ensure full re-use (including commercial uses)
political support is growing
UK government commitment – Finch group, new RCUK policy
internationally – encouraging developments in Europe and the US
(accessed 15 May 2012)

10. Compliance with Wellcome mandate?
Significant increase from 2006 – but still work to do…
Compliance – around 55%-60%

11. New policy: sanctions for non-compliance
1. In End of Grant Report all papers listed must be OA. If not the final payment on the grant (typically 10%) will be withheld 2. Non-compliant publications will be discounted as part of a researcher’s track record in any renewal of an existing grant or new grant application 3. Trust-funded researchers will need to ensure that all publications associated with their Wellcome-funded research are OA before any funding renewals or new grant awards will be activated Sanctions aimed at changing behaviour

12. Open access – policy requires CC-BY
OA policy now specifies that research, for which an OA fee is paid, must be licenced using CC-BY
Will introduce this requirement from April 2013
Working with RCUK on this requirement
Early indicators are that publishers will offer this licence option

13. CC-BY: why?
CC-BY now the de facto OA licence We believe that the full research and economic benefit of published content will only be realised when there are no restrictions on access to, and reuse of, this information

14. Wellcome Trust funding in Africa
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Wellcome Trust funding in Africa
Major Overseas Programmes in Kenya, Malawi and South Africa
Capacity building initiatives:
African Institutions initiative - £30m to support 7 pan-African consortia
WT and DFID Health Research Capacity Strengthening initiative in Kenya and Malawi
Other major research funding
Joint Global Health Trials initiative (with DFID and MRC)
H3 Africa (with NIH)
Malaria Capacity Development Consortium
Major longitudinal, cohort studies

15. Research and collaboration in Africa
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Research and collaboration in Africa
Overall volume of research activity remains small – investment as %GDP very low, even in more resource-rich countries
Huge variation in research output – South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria dominate in terms of numbers (but others e.g. Malawi relatively strong in terms of output quality)
Collaborative networks reflect historical legacies (e.g. anglophone countries good links to US and UK), but not clear how great a priority this is for the G7 partners in current economic climate.

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Where we are…
research could make a major contribution to addressing health and development challenges facing African nations
some areas of strength – e.g. strong biomedical, public and clinical research
but almost all research funded internationally, often with lack of collaboration in-country:
lack of national and local (researcher) ownership
risk of distorted national research agenda
research evidence not used to inform health policy
we need…
high quality training opportunities in research
excellent research environments
competitive health research funding opportunities within African countries at a national level
partnerships between development and research funders

17. OA and Africa – some perspectives 1
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OA and Africa – some perspectives 1
Gold OA is vital to ensure researchers can immediately access and use published research findings, wherever they are based in the world
but we must ensure that researchers in resource-poor settings are not restricted in their ability to publish their work
publication has a cost - we believe strongly that funders must recognise and resource these costs as integral part of funding research
in considering possible models to enable African researchers to realise the benefits of gold OA, we must recognise the context and constraints, for example:
the lack of institutional infrastructure, support and awareness
current publication practices (e.g. much research never published)

18. OA and Africa – some perspectives 2
Focus on what we as a funder can control / help with:
Access to funding
Capacity to administer funding
Policy flexibility (the “quality issue”)