JISC

Balancing rights and interests in the digital age

SURF and JISC have published a model agreement that will help authors make appropriate arrangements with publishers for the publication of a journal article. This "Licence to Publish" is the result of several years of international consultation and aims to establish a balance of rights and interests in the emerging scholarly communications environment.

The rise of digital channels of communication has meant that the process of publishing research material has been undergoing major changes over the last few years. SURF and JISC - two organisations that promote the innovative use of ICT in higher education in the Netherlands and the UK, respectively - have pressed for some years for carefully thought-out arrangements to be made regarding copyright, with the interests of all parties being maximised. The overarching principle behind their activities in this field is that the results of publicly funded research should be made freely and openly available, and as quickly as possible, to all who want to access them.

The main features of the Licence to Publish are that:

• copyright in the published work remains with the author
• the author grants the publisher a licence to publish the work
• the licence takes effect as soon as the publisher has indicated that it wishes to publish the work
• once the article has been published, the author can make it publicly accessible - in the form in which it was published by the publisher - by making it available as part of a digital scientific collection (a 'repository')
• if the publisher so requests, the start of such public accessibility can be delayed for a maximum of six months

The new model agreement will be particularly useful where articles are published in the traditional way, with publications being made available only to subscribers. The agreement is available in both Dutch and English and can be used for publications involving more than one author.

Use of the Licence to Publish is supported by the Wellcome Trust, a charity and the UK's largest non-governmental funder of biomedical research.

For further information, please go to: Model agreement