Open Access

Imagine, if you will, open access as a train, running up and down the length of the country, travelling anywhere track is laid, delivering papers, books, ideas to all and sundry. Research funders have the opportunity to man the signal boxes and set the open access movement’s direction of travel. That is what the Wellcome Trust intends with the extension of our open access policy to include scholarly monographs and book chapters, part of our on-going commitment to making the research we fund open to all in order to maximise its impact.

The Trust has been very vocal about our position towards open access, but until recently monographs hadn’t been included in our policy. As a funder of research in the medical humanities, we recognise that monographs are one of the primary research outputs within these disciplines. As we value all the research we fund equally, it seemed important for us to lay down some new track and ensure that these outputs can be accessed by all. Extending our open access policy to include them seemed an obvious step.