Policy Clause Bank & Generator

HowOpenIsIt? Policy Guide

Funders interested in generating an open research policy tailored to your specific priorities and missions, click here.

At the ORFG, one of our priorities is to advise funders on the development of policies that stimulate the sharing of research outputs like articles, data, and more. We aim to meet funders where they currently are on their policy journey, and help them tailor policies that best fit their organization’s mission and goals. But we understand this can be a challenging process – gathering information on the wide range of sharing practices, crafting clear language, and finding examples of good practices to pull from takes time, energy, and can be a significant barrier.  

That’s why we're excited to share two resources, designed to make policy development as easy as possible for funders. The first resource, our Policy Clause Bank, includes sample language for policies covering a range of different scholarly outputs and sharing practices. The goals here are two-fold: one, that funders can see how their peer organizations are phrasing certain requirements (each example links out to the funder policies it was adapted from), and two, that funders can identify the plug-and-play language that best fits their needs and incorporate it into their policies with very minimal changes.  

The second resource, our Policy Generator, is a full-service complement to the self-service Policy Clause Bank. It facilitates the process of selecting the policy language that is right for each funder. The Policy Generator is a Google form with questions that guide funders through the process of choosing policy characteristics that align with funder goals and operations. Based on the selected responses, the ORFG policy team will develop a customized draft plan for any interested funder, quickly and at no charge. These tools are intended both for funders who are developing a new policy, and also for those who would like to revise an existing policy by including new research products or requirements. 

We are eager to have funders explore these tools and try them out! If you are interested, please fill out the Google form for the Policy Generator, and we will then send you a customized proposal based on your responses in just a few days. If you have questions or would like more support, please also feel free to contact ORFG’s Community Manager, Erin McKiernan.

As the launch and continued growth of the Open Research Funders Group demonstrates, momentum around the open sharing of research outputs is building within the funder community. Many organizations have expressed an interest in developing their own open policies. One significant hurdle is a lack of clarity about what factors an effective and comprehensive policy should address. Another is a concern that policies must follow a rigid ideology in order to be considered "truly open". In response to these considerations, the ORFG is pleased to announce the release of the HowOpenIsIt? Guide to Research Funder Policies. Built off the success of the highly visible HowOpenIsIt? Guide for Evaluating the Openness of Journals, this new resource frames the choices funding organizations should consider in developing an open policy. Further, it highlights the spectrum that exists between a fully open and a fully closed approach to funded research outputs.

Interested in sharing with other research stakeholders?  Download a PDF copy.

Banner image courtesy of Rennett Stowe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.