Introducing the UK
Scholarly
Communications Licence
Dr Ian Carter
Director of Research and Enterprise
Research Hive Seminars, February 2017
The Context
• Visibility, accessibility, usability of publications
• Funder requirements for Open Access (OA)
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RCUK
REF
EU
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• Institutional policies for OA
• Publisher agreements
The Question
Is there a structural mechanism that could be used to comply with the
policies and to provide the benefits of OA?
Who Owns the Copyright?
• Under the Patents Acts 1977 and 1988 intellectual property
generated through the course of employment belongs to the
employer
• Copyright in academic books and articles is typically waived or
assigned in favour of the author
• Some universities retain some rights in articles
• Authors contract with publishers, and may license or assign their
copyright to the publisher
The Harvard Approach
• Academics grant the university a non-exclusive, non-commercial
licence for all accepted manuscripts of their articles
• The licence pre-dates and overrides publisher contracts
• The licence allows the university to:
− Make manuscripts available on-line on publication of the article
− sub-license back to the author
• Authors can request a waiver of the licence for an article
The UK SCL
• Replicate the Harvard approach, taking into account UK law
• Effect through IP policy (if required)
− Staff grant the university a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, noncommercial licence to make their accepted manuscripts publicly available under a
CC-BY-NC licence
• Applies to journal articles and conference proceedings only
• Authors can request a waiver of the licence for an article
UK Legal Requirements
• The publisher needs to have knowledge, actual or constructive, of
the licence
− Universities and sector bodies will notify publishers
− Authors do not need to do anything
• All co-authors need to be in agreement
− No action required if all authors are from an institution that has adopted the policy
and licence (or equivalent)
− Need simple mechanisms to gain agreement , e.g. standard clause in
collaboration agreements, and standard email text between authors
The State of Play
• Standard policy and licence produced
• 70 institutions interested, with 18 actively pursuing
• National Steering Group established
− Monitoring progress to determine launch date
− Developing communications and guidance
− Developing standard processes and text
• Other countries interested
The Risks
• Publishers will not play ball
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Requiring that authors request waivers
Refusing to publish under the licence terms
Taking legal action against authors and institutions
Challenging the policy under competition law
• Process is overly burdensome
− Co-author agreement
− Waiver request
The Benefits
• Structural mechanism to meet principles of OA and funder
requirements
• Supports publication in journal of choice
• Reduces reliance on exceptions in the REF
• Authors do not need to negotiate with publishers
• A larger share of outputs will be publicly available, and sooner than
at present