Library Links

• Home
• Services
• Get Help
• About Us

ISSUES IN SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION:
News for the University of Illinois Community

« Harvard Faculty Council recommends an OA policy | Main | Suit Over Restrictions on Authors in Nations Under Embargo Settled »

September 27, 2007

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Announces Further Support for Open Access

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) the largest private funder of biomedical research in the U.S. has announced several new policies that strongly demonstrate it's support for open access:

• Starting with papers submitted for publication after January 1, 2008, HHMI will will require its scientists to publish their original research articles in journals that allow the articles and supplementary materials to be made freely accessible in a public repository within six months of publication.
  
• HHMI will pay up to $2,000 in open access charges per article with the balance coming from laboratory budgets or other sources....
  
• Under an agreement reached with Springer, if an HHMI sponsored article is accepted for publication in a Springer journal (after a process of rigorous peer-review), it will be immediately published with full open access and deposited in repositories such as PubMed Central. HHMI has agreed to pay Springer a flat-rate fee per article of $3,000. Springer's Open Choice programme applies to all its journals. In Springer Open Choice, authors are not required to transfer their copyright to Springer; instead, these articles are published under a Creative Commons License....
  

This agreement with Springer is much better than the earlier agreement HMMI made with Elsevier whereby HMMI agreed to pay for delayed access ("green access") to articles that their authors publish in Elsevier journals rather than the immediate access ("gold access") offered through Springer's Open Choice program.

Posted by Katie Newman at September 27, 2007 2:10 PM

For comments on this page contact: Kaite Newman