Research funding policy interest has been understandably focused on the formation of UKRI. But in a way, that misses the point. Bit “machinery of governance” style changes can be fascinating to watch, but often also mean that the foot is taken off the development of policy. Plan S surprised us with its ambitious scope – but even if it was implemented in full by UKRI it would just mean they were catching up with the open science policies of the Wellcome Trust.
The Wellcome Open Research platform allows the researchers it funds to rapidly share articles and underlying data – with immediate publication and transparent refereeing. Publication costs are directly covered by Wellcome itself. This neatly avoids article processing charges and publication delays – and although Wellcome still supports other forms of open publication you genuinely have to wonder why – in a saner research world – they would need to.
A Royal Society Fellow and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Farrar has the credibility and background to pull this off this radical change in research practice at the UK’s largest independent research funder.