The UK has been debating open-access policies and, over the summer, the Research Councils UK adopted a policy requiring research that it funds to be publicly available, and the government subsequently put aside fund to assist researchers in paying publication fees. But the timing of open access is still up for debate.
As the Nature News blog reports, the UK government has said that a year-long embargo — similar to the National Institutes of Health policy in the US — would give publishers time to make money selling access to research papers, though funding agencies have been pushing for a shorter timeline to open access.
This week, though, Research Councils UK said that it would follow the government recommendations in the short term, the Nature News blog adds. "We will be significantly more relaxed about our requirements on embargoes," Rick Rylance, the chief executive of Research Councils UK, told the House of Lords' Science and Technology Select Committee during a hearing on open access.