1/ MBIE has just announced a new #openaccess policy: all peer-reviewed articles + conf proceedings arising from their funding must be open. What does this mean for researchers? Read on for a summary of the new policy.
2/ The policy takes effect from 1 January 2023. There are two compliant pathways: 1. Journal based (Gold) or repository based (Green). Importantly, this means authors will not be required to pay for OA at fee-charging journals - they can upload to a repository instead. 
3/ Lets dive into these a bit more. If authors opt for the gold route, they will be required to publish in a fully OA journal which makes thier work open immediately on publication. I believe this excludes 'hybrid' journals which publish a mix of closed and open content.
4/ Not all OA journals charge a fee to publish. In fact, around two thirds of titles in the Directory of Open Access Journals don't. But of course higher prestige/IF titles tend to charge.
5/ If authors opt for the green route, they can upload the Accepted Manuscript to an approved repository. The AM is the final peer-reviewed version submitted back to the journal before they typeset it.
6/ Approved repositories include institutional repos (all NZ universities have one) or public repositories listed by OpenDOAR. Most publishers require a 6-12 month embargo from publication until the AM can be released through a repository.
7/ Embargo periods for the journal you've published in can be found by searching the title on the Sherpa/ROMEO database. MBIE will allow up to 12 months - if your preferred journal has a longer embargo (rare) that journal will not be compliant. Example of Sherpa/ROMEO result:
8/ This new policy is very similar to policies enacted 10-15 years ago by most public European funders, NIH, & philanthropic orgs like Gates, Wellcome, and medical charities. NZ will benefit from this experience.
9/ The new policy does not mandate anything around research data but:
10/ “strongly recommends…that research data arising from funded projects be made openly available whenever they are not precluded by indigenous data sovereignty considerations, copyright restrictions, confidentiality requirements, or contractual clauses.”
11/ Overall I'm very excited about this policy because it has the potential to unlock a huge chunk of publicly-funded research produced here. There is no requirement to pay to publish, and uploading a file to a repository does not take long (I've done it several times).
12/ However, researchers will need upskilling around publishing, and will now need to understand more terminology, processes, and how their publishing choices affect accessibility of their work.
13/ The policy begins very soon! We need to make sure our research librarians have the support to advise on the process and assist with repositories. Policy here: mbie.govt.nz/science-and-te…
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