Compliance with Funders' Mandates – FACT

Eight of the United Kingdom’s biggest research funders – the RCUK group and Wellcome Trust – introduced a new joint open access mandate in April 2013. Together they control annual budgets of about £3 billion (GBP). The complexity of publishers open access policies combined with the various options in the mandate can make things very difficult for authors. The funders therefore commissioned the Centre for Research Communications to create a simple Funders & Authors Compliance Tool – FACT – to guide them through this potential minefield. It tells them if their chosen journal complies with their funder’s mandate, how it complies (or does not comply), and what they should do next, depending on where they are in the publication cycle. Interestingly, the need for simplicity means that the tool has to interpret the policies listed in the SHERPA/RoMEO, not just present the raw data. This talk will discuss the various issues encountered along the way, report on the take-up of FACT by academics, research managers and repository administrators, outline the lessons learned, and indicate opportunities for the future, especially for other funders.