Open Access Australasia welcomes the NHMRC’s announcement of its updated open access policy. The policy, which requires that all NHMRC funded research will need to be made immediately open access at the time of first online publication with a CC-BY licence is a substantial step forward from the last revision of its policy in 2018.
It brings the NHMRC into line with that of cOAlition S, which the NHMRC has also just announced that it will be joining. Importantly the revised policy states that “NHMRC recognises the valuable contribution provided by all routes to achieving open access to publications. NHMRC has no preferred route for open access and respects a diversity of approaches.” ie that researchers can comply with the policy either through journal based or repository based open access. The policy specifically supports authors retaining authorship rights.
The policy comes into effect immediately for all new grants from all publications produced from NHMRC grants awarded under guidelines issued on or after 20 September 2022 and from 1 Jan 2024 for other grants.
KimTairi, Chair of the Open Access Australasia Executive committee said: “I applaud the NHMRC for their leadership. The policy which embraces diversity, rights retention and creative commons licensing is a benchmark in the region. We are hopeful that other research funders and government in Australasia follow their lead soon.”
The revised policy is available here and the accompanying press release is here