Research funders are increasingly recognising the importance of open research practices, to increase the reach and impact of their funded research and to ensure the integrity of research results. The Wellcome Trust have been leading efforts to make research more open for more than 20 years, ever since working to make sure the results of the Human Genome Project were released immediately into the public domain. They were also the first research funder to introduce a mandatory open access policy, with more than 150 global research funders having since followed their lead. More recently, they have developed the Wellcome Open Research platform, which allow their researchers to rapidly publish and share their findings openly and transparently, and encourage researchers to cite preprints in their grant applications. On Thursday 17th June we welcome Sonya Towers, Grants Adviser - Immunobiology and Infectious Disease at the Wellcome Trust, to discuss Wellcome’s approach to open research including their Output Management Plan pilot on which they are liaising with the University of Leeds.

1. Open Research at
Wellcome
Sonya Towers

2. • Wellcome is a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving
health for everyone, by helping great ideas to thrive
• we want the outputs of the research we fund to be avaliable and
used in ways that maximise benefit to health & society
• we are a passionate champion and advocate of open access and
data sharing, with long-standing policies in place
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Wellcome’s commitment to Open
Research

3. Our vision for Open Research
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“A world where there are transformative
improvements in human health because
research outputs are managed, shared, and
used in ways that unleash their full value”

4. • enable outputs to be accessed, combined and used in ways that
accelerate discovery and application
• help ensure research findings can be validated and reproduced
• increase efficiency in research - reducing duplication and waste
• make research outputs more readily accessible to full range of users –
including public, policymakers, healthcare professionals, etc.
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Open Research – what do we want
to achieve?

5. Open Research team – our work
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Supporting researchers
to develop cutting edge
approaches to openness.
Leading in development
of policies and practices
to support, incentivize,
and sustain open
research.
Developing major
initiatives to support the
community and drive
change.

6. Driving the transition to
Open Access
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7. Wellcome’s Open Access Policy
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• Wellcome has had a mandatory Open Access policy since 2005
• In November 2018 Wellcome joined cOAlition S. Wellcome joining
cOAlition S signals our commitment to implement the necessary
measures to fulfil its main principle:
With effect from 2021, all scholarly publications on the results from
research funded by public or private grants provided by national,
regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must
be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or
made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without
embargo.
• In Jan 2021 new OA policy came into effect

8. OA policy 2021: in a nutshell
https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/guidance/open-
access-guidance/open-access-policy
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• All original research articles supported in whole, or in
part, by Wellcome must be:
1. made freely available through PubMed Central
(PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final
publication date
And
2. published under a Creative Commons attribution
licence (CC BY), unless we have agreed, as an
exception, to allow publication under a CC BY-
ND licence.
• Policy applies to all research articles submitted for
publication from 1 January 2021

9. OA policy 2021: other elements
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• All research articles must include a statement explaining how
other researchers can access any data, original software or
materials underpinning the research
• We are committed to making sure that when we assess research
outputs during funding decisions, we consider the intrinsic merit of
the work, not the title of the journal or publisher. All Wellcome-
funded institutions have to commit to this principle

10. What has changed?
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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New OA policy Previous OA policy
No embargoes accepted Previously accommodated a 6-month embargo
All research articles must be openly licensed Previously this was only when we paid an APC
No longer funding APCs in subscription/hybrid
journals – unless part of a transformative
arrangement
Previously we paid APCs in subscription
journals
New grant condition added such that all
grantholders automatically grant a CC BY public
copyright licence to all their future Author
Accepted Manuscripts
No equivalent grant condition

11. Supporting researchers & institutions
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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https://journalcheckertool.org/

12. 12
www.wellcomeopenresearch.org
A publishing platform where Wellcome-funded researchers
can publish any results they think are worth sharing
Fast – articles published within a week
Inclusive – can publish all your research outputs
standard research articles, data sets, case reports, protocols,
and null and negative results
Open – fulfils Trust OA and data sharing requirements
Reproducible – data published alongside article​
Transparent – open peer review; you choose referees from an
approved list
Easy – costs are met directly by Wellcome
Wellcome Open Research

13. 13
Wellcome Open Research
•Submitted articles are exposed to a number of
objective tests
•Once passed – article is published, with formal
citation & DOI
•Peer review happens post publication
•Authors respond to reviewers comments and
produce new versions
•Peer review-approved papers will be deposited
in Europe PMC, PMC and indexed in PubMed

14. Responsible research
metrics
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15. Committing to change research assessment practice
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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https://sfdora.org/#
• Deeply-embedded research
assessment practices in academia are
a critical barrier to open research
• We commit to the principle that it’s the
intrinsic merit of research that should
be important, not where it is published
• We are signatory to the San Francisco
Declaration on Research Assessment
(DORA) and support its implementation

16. Working with research organisations
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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• We have developed our processes as a funder in line with our support for
DORA, but recognise that the organisations we fund also have a critical role
in driving change
• We require in our new Open Access policy that organisations also commit to
the principle of judging outputs on their merit – for example, by signing
DORA or adopting Leiden Manifesto or equivalent principles
• We have encouraged institutions to use our Institutional Strategic Support
Fund awards to support DORA implementation
• We have developed draft guidance for our funded research institutions on
implementing principles
• This is part of broader work at Wellcome to reimagine research culture and
support research rigour
Neurons in the brain. Credit: Dr Jonathan
Clarke. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

17. Outputs Management Plan
support service
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18. Outputs Management Plans
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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We expect the researchers we fund to manage their
research outputs in a way that will achieve the greatest
health benefit.
If the proposed research will generate outputs - including
datasets, software, materials or intellectual property -
that will hold value as a resource for the wider research
community, then the applicants should include an
Outputs Management Plan.

19. What is an Outputs
Management Plan?
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
19
An Outputs Management Plan should clearly describe:
• What outputs will be generated and/or how will existing
data/resources be re-used
• What metadata or documentation will accompany the
outputs e.g. via a data note
• When and where will the outputs be made available
• How will the research outputs be discovered and
accessed by the community
• If there are restrictions on data sharing
• How the data will be stored backed up and preserved
• What resources are required
Outputs Management Plans ensure that grant holders have
sufficient plans in place, at the beginning of their grant.
When?
Where?
How?
What?

20. Background
• Output Management Plans submitted to Wellcome
vary widely in quality.
• In several cases an Outputs Management Plan was
not supplied, when required, so the question is now
mandatory
• Launched the Outputs Management plan support
service
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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21. Outputs Management Plan support service pilot
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
21
Wellcome is running a pilot Outputs Management Plan
support service from October 2020 – October 2021.
The pilot will be available to all applicants where the:
• quality of the plan has been flagged as requiring
improvement
• the application has been recommended for funding.
Following award, the grant holder will be contacted to inform
them that they have been suggested to take part in the pilot.

22. Open Research &
COVID-19
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23. Ensuring rapid access to COVID-19
research – Wellcome’s activities
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• coordinated a joint statement on sharing research data and
findings relevant to COVID-19 (Jan 2020) and a follow up
statement from publishers in March 2020 (in partnership
with OSTP and NLM)
• implemented special conditions for grants via COVID-19
funding initiatives, in with these statements
• conducting additional review of OMPs associated with
COVID-19 applications
By Felipe Esquivel Reed - Own work,
CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde
x.php?curid=87846813

24. Looking Ahead…

25. Emerging priorities for Wellcome
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• COVID-19 – learning lessons and exploring potential to apply
approaches to accelerate access to findings and data more
broadly
• Open Access – working with researchers, institutions and
Coalition S partners to implement new policy & support
innovation
• FAIR data – supporting researchers in making data and other
outputs findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR)
• Embedding incentives – in partnership with partner funders
and our funded institutions
• Supporting innovation - maximising the impact of our Open
Research funding
Image: Moheen Reeyad (moheenreeyad.xyz)
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

26. Questions

27. Routes to Open Access
wellcome.org | @wellcometrust
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Route 1 Route 2 Route 3
Open Access publishing
venues (journals or
platforms)
Subscription venues
(repository route)
Transition of subscription
venues (transformative
arrangements)
Description Authors publish in an Open
Access journal or on an
Open Access platform.
Authors publish in a
subscription journal and
make the Author’s Accepted
Manuscript (AAM) openly
available in a repository.
Authors publish Open
Access in a subscription
journal under a
transformative arrangement.
Funding Wellcome will financially
support publication fees.
Wellcome will not financially
support ‘hybrid’ Open Access
publication fees in
subscription venues.
Wellcome will financially
contribute to the cost of
these arrangements at the
institution level.