Research Infrastructure and the Open Access Agenda

Dr Alexander CookeAustralian Research Council

Contents• NCRIS

– Platforms for Collaboration (PfC)

• Accessibility Framework– ARC/NHMRC Funding Rules– Code for the Responsible Conduct of

Research– ASHER & IAP– HERDC & ERA

• National Innovation System Review

NCRIS• Program was announced in 2004 as part of

Backing Australia’s Ability. 

• Providing $542 million over 2005-2011 to provide researchers with major research facilities, supporting infrastructure and networks necessary for world-class research

• A new, strategic approach to funding research infrastructure – not a competitive bidding process.

NCRIS principles• Maximise the contributions of the research and development

system to economic development and social wellbeing• Focus resources in areas where Australia is, or has the potential to

be, world-class• Major infrastructure should be developed on a collaborative,

national, non-exclusive basis• Access is a critical issue in the drive to optimise Australia’s

research infrastructure• Due regard should be given to the whole-of-life costs of major

infrastructure• The Strategy should seek to enable the fuller participation of

Australian researchers in the international research system.

• NCRIS developed priority areas for support with the research

community - published as the “NCRIS Roadmap”

• Each area aims to support research excellence, promote

collaboration and provide national benefit

• NCRIS is a response to

– Recognition of the need for a ‘small’ country to be strategic

– Increasing importance of major research infrastructure to research and innovation

– Increasing need for collaborative research

– Increasing cost and complexity of research infrastructure

NCRIS principles

Current NCRIS investment pattern$540M over the five years: 2007-2011

• Evolving bio-molecular platforms and informatics • Integrated biological systems• Characterisation• Fabrication • Biotechnology products• Optical and radio astronomy• Integrated marine capability• Structure and evolution of the Australian continent

• Networked biosecurity framework

• Population health and clinical data linkage

• Terrestrial ecosystem research network

Platforms for Collaboration

• Data access and discovery, storage and management

• Grid enabled technologies and infrastructures

• Technical expertise• High performance computing• High capacity communication networks

• Controlled sharing of researcher identities• Researchers and resource owners should

control who can do what to their resources

• Expanding the e-Research community to “non builder” users

• Engaging the broader NCRIS community

Platforms for Collaboration (PfC)From the NCRIS Roadmap:

All areas of modern research are heavily – and increasingly – dependent on technological platforms that are enormously enhancing the research community’s ability to collect, share, analyse, store and retrieve information. These “platforms for collaboration” are continuing to develop rapidly, creating an ongoing flow of opportunities to enhance the quantity, quality and productivity of research effort.

In the [NCRIS] Committee’s view, investment in these platforms is critical to sustaining the standing of Australia’s researchers and supporting the development of collaborative approaches to research that are both nationally focused and well connected with global research efforts.

PfC investmentsAustralia National Data Service Data Federations ($24M)• Develop user and owner frameworks for a data commons• Develop and operate national registries and data sharing services• Help Institutions connect repositories to the data commons• Help researchers publish, share and access data through the commons

National Computational Infrastructure Advanced Modeling ($26M)• Develop and operate a shared national computational facility• Develop domain oriented advanced modelling capabilities

Australian Research Collaboration Service Research Workflows ($20M)• Develop and operate services linking systems and resources nation wide• Develop and operate collaboration and workflow tools for researchers

Australian Access Federation and Research Networks Seamless Reach ($5M)• Develop a shared authorisation framework for access to research resources • Connect researchers and research resources at required bandwidth

Additional spends (Social Science data $3M, additional Authorisation Services $2M)

Strategic roadmap• The Strategic Roadmap for Australian Research

Infrastructure was released by the Minister on 4 September 2008. 

• The Strategic Roadmap outlines where the strategic infrastructure investments should be made over the next five to 10 years.

• Developed by the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy committee in consultation with the research community and State and Territory governments.

• The Strategic Roadmap is expected to be an important input to the Government's White Paper response to the Review of the National Innovation System.

The 2008 revised roadmap• A number of additional needs identified across key areas result

in a reshaping, and in the most part a supplementing, of elements in individual NCRIS capabilities.

• The Humanities, Arts and the Social Sciences (HASS) are specifically recognised as an important capability area, in view of this research area's significant contributions to national outcomes.

• The significance of ICT as an underpinning and pervasive capability is strongly acknowledged.

• The inclusion of data itself as collaborative research infrastructure is emphasised.

• The need to further enable and recognise the linkages between specific capabilities has resulted in the grouping of related areas.

The Open Access Agenda in Australia

• The Accessibility Framework

• Current opportunities for strengthening open access

• National Innovation System Review

History of the Accessibility Framework

• The Accessibility Framework was proposed in the 2004 Backing Australia’s Ability – Building our Future through Science and Innovation package.

• Aimed to ensure that information about publicly funded research and its outcomes is accessible both to end users and to the publicly funded research community.

• Would apply to research data, research publications and other research outputs produced with the aid of public funds.

Accessibility Framework• Principles behind the framework have been behind a

range of enabling strategies in place or being implemented by the Australian Government:– NCRIS – National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy

– ANDS – Australian National Data Scheme

– ASHER – Australian Scheme for Higher Education Repositories

– OAK Law – Open Access to Knowledge Law Project

– Other projects funded under the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative

Broad Principles for an Accessibility Framework

• publicly funded research outputs and data should be managed in ways that maximise public benefit

• institutions or individuals receiving public money have an obligation to make the results of their research publicly available as soon as possible

• outputs should be made accessible through an institutional digital repository, a subject matter digital repository and/or open access publication

• constraints to open access should only apply in a very few cases, for example for reasons of national security, privacy or cultural sensitivity.

• at the research proposal stage, researchers should consider how to ensure readability, durability and re-usability of research outputs and data

• the provision of open access should include the curation and preservation of digital material including cataloguing, archiving, reproducing, safekeeping and media migration of research outputs

ARC and NHMRC Funding Rules• The ARC and the NHMRC have jointly stated their desire to “ensure

the widest possible dissemination of the research supported by their grants, in the most effective manner and at the earliest opportunity”.

• This is currently reflected in ARC and NHMRC Funding Rules for funding commencing in 2008 and 2009.

• The ARC Funding Rules for both Discovery Projects and Linkage Projects for funding commencing in 2009 state that if a researcher is not intending to deposit data from a project in a repository within six months of the completion of the research, they should include the reasons in the project’s Final Report.

• Research outputs that have been or will be deposited in appropriate repositories should be identified in the Final Report.

• Most ARC and NHMRC projects have 3-4 year timeframes so there will be some delay for this policy to take full effect.

What current opportunities are there to strengthen open access?

• ARC/NHMRC Funding Rules – an Accessibility Framework offers the ARC,

NHMRC and other funding bodies the possibility of further strengthening their competitive grant funding rules to mandate rather than encourage the deposit of research outputs into open access repositories.

– requirements in Funding Rules for institutions to maintain infrastructure to ensure appropriate preservation and curation of research data and outputs.

The Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research – Part A

• The Code seeks to promote the responsible dissemination of research findings, with due regard for the protection of intellectual property and other rights.

• Institutions’ responsibilities in the Code include: having policies addressing the ownership, retention and storage of research materials and data, and appropriate access to them by the research community.

• Researchers’ responsibilities include: ensuring that research findings are disseminated responsibly and making research data available for use by other researchers – unless prevented by ethical, privacy or confidentiality matters.

The Code – Part A cont…• Research sponsors should not delay publication beyond

the time needed to protect intellectual property and other relevant interests.

• Researchers should be aware of contractual arrangements that restrict, delay or limit publication.

• Researchers should disseminate a full account of their research as broadly as possible.

• Researchers should take reasonable steps to obtain permission from original publisher before republishing research findings.

ASHER and IAP• On 21 December 2007, the Minister announced that the

Government had ceased implementation of the Research Quality Framework (RQF)

• Funding previously given to institutions for the RQF through the Australian Scheme for Higher Education Repositories (ASHER) and the Implementation Assistance Program (IAP) would continue

• Funding for ASHER and IAP will:

– allow higher education providers to develop their data systems to prepare for the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative, and

– enable higher education providers to make their research outputs more widely available to other researchers, business and the community.

Implementation Assistance Program

• $16.4 million over four calendar years (2007-10) to assist institutions to develop and implement data gathering and reporting systems for bibliometric and other data as part of the ERA initiative

• IAP will provide $5.5 million to eligible higher education providers in 2009

• Funding will terminate at the end of the 2010 calendar year

Australian Scheme for Higher Education Repositories (ASHER)

• $25.5 million over three calendar years (2007‑09).

• To assist higher education providers to establish and maintain digital repositories.

• DIISR and ARC will seek to identify progress where possible in 2008 end-of-year progress reports.

• ASHER will provide $9.8 million in 2009.

• Minister Carr is considering how to strengthen grant conditions for 2009 to state that institutions must aim to deposit all outputs produced by researchers in the institution in an open access repository wherever possible. This statement aligns with the current requirements outlined in the ARC and NHMRC’s current Funding Rules.

• DIISR and ARC will monitor compliance in 2009 end-of-year progress reports.

• ASHER funding will terminate at the end of the 2009 calendar year

HERDC and ERA• Minister Carr announced the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA)

initiative in February this year.

• ERA will evaluate research quality within Australia’s higher education institutions using a combination of indicators and expert review by committees comprising experienced, internationally-recognised experts.

• The ERA initiative will use the existing Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) where possible to gather data for the evaluation process.

• ERA will evaluate all research (unlike the RQF, which was intentionally selective).

• ERA will also make use of institutional repositories to facilitate the peer review component of evaluation.

• The ERA IT System will enable linking to the metadata of research outputs.

• No decision has been taken to use ERA to determine research funding allocations to universities.

HERDC and ERA• In the absence of another allocation mechanism, HERDC will

continue to determine research block funding.

• While there are two research publication collection processes operating in parallel, there are opportunities to streamline HERDC and ERA processes.

• Could be done by integrating institution’s systems (both research management systems and institutional repositories) into both publication processes.

• BUT this is up to institutions to decide.

• There are issues surrounding the integration of HERDC and institutional repositories, including the storage of published and/or post-print versions of research outputs.

• There are also issues with ensuring proper metadata standards for this kind of material.

HERDC and ERA• Existing requirement to store copies of HERDC outputs for

auditing purposes for three years.

• Some institutions still use filing cabinets to keep their records. Some use “digital filing cabinets”. Some institutions have already “integrated” their repository with their HERDC submission system.

• Opportunities to change HERDC specifications to require submitted publications to be open access or potentially just the metadata.

• Could potentially impact over 44,000 publications a year and could take effect from 2009 onwards (at the earliest).

• Still requires legal guidance for institutions to ensure appropriate compliance with copyright.

HERDC and ERA• Benefits of using repositories or other research

management systems that are capable of being harvested:

– Could provide for a research discovery service of all metadata and outputs produced in Australian universities.

– Given the technical readiness of the sector for ERA, this is certainly not something we can do straight away.

– The ERA IT System uses existing standards where possible.

National Innovation Review• The Report of the Innovation Panel Review was

released on 9 September 2008.• The Government will release a White Paper policy

response to the Green Paper by end 2008. • Recommendations included:

– Establishment of a National Research Infrastructure Committee.

– Funding for a successor program to NCRIS explicitly including support for humanities, social sciences and creative arts as well as the sciences.

– Establishment of a National Information Strategy.

National Innovation Review• Material released for public information by Australian governments

should be released under a creative commons licence.

• Development and implementation of a specific strategy for ensuring placement of Australian-produced scientific knowledge in machine searchable repositories (with public funding agencies and universities as drivers).

• To the maximum extent practicable, information, research and content funded by Australian governments – including national collections – should be made freely available over the internet as part of the global public commons.

• Funding models and institutional mandates should recognise the research and innovation role and contributions of cultural agencies and institutions responsible for information repositories, physical collections or creative content and fund them accordingly.

Minister Carr’s statements on venturousaustralia

• The review panel recommends making material available under a creative commons licence through: – machine searchable repositories, especially for scientific papers and

data

– cultural agencies, collections and institutions, which would be funded to reflect their role in innovation

– and the internet, where it would be freely available to the world.

• Consistent with steps already taken to revive work on the accessibility framework proposed – but never delivered – by the previous government.

• We are and will remain a net importer of knowledge, so it is in our interest to promote the freest possible flow of information domestically and globally.

Questions