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New UK Funder Mandates – How PLOS can help researchers

PLOS Publishing

At the beginning of April, Research Councils UK (RCUK) simultaneously rolled out new Public Access requirements for the research that they fund and a £17M commitment in 2013/14 to support scientific research articles published through Open Access.  RCUK joins the Wellcome Trust who offers similar support to their researchers.

The transition to these new policies has been rapid, leaving some institutions and researchers unsure of how best to satisfy these requirements. For comprehensive information on how to fulfill RCUK or Wellcome requirements for different journals, and publishers, authors should consult the new resources that have been developed to help.

One easy way to cut through this confusion is to publish with PLOS.  From the UK to the USA to any of the other mandates in place or under consideration around the world, publishing in the PLOS journals offers a straightforward way to satisfy the requirements of all funders’ mandates.  As a leader in the Open Access community, PLOS works collaboratively with both research funders and authors to ensure that publishing in our journals is the easiest possible way to comply with all Public Access policy mandates.

Other good reasons for choosing PLOS include:

A suite of publication options – Whether the work is of very wide medical or scientific interest; is important work for the communities in genetics, pathogens, neglected tropical diseases or computational biology,; or is good science that needs to be published efficiently without the cycle of submission, rejection, and resubmission, PLOS has a journal to publish in.

Rigorous peer review – The review process at all our journals is highly rigorous; at PLOS ONE the focus on scientific validity and technical quality has a growing reputation for being tough but fair, and means good work gets published faster. Our community journals – PLOS Pathogens, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics and PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases – are overseen by research leaders in their fields. PLOS Biology publishes research articles of exceptional significance in all areas of biological science. PLOS Medicine publishes outstanding research and commentary on the major challenges to human health worldwide.

Cost effective and highly visible – PLOS was born out of the internet revolution and our prices reflect the built-in efficiency in dissemination that the web enables. On a like-for-like comparison, our publication charges can be up to 50% less than those of traditional journals offering hybrid options. The value of publishing with PLOS is enhanced by the high visibility of the journals. PLOS articles generate more than 1.5 million article views per month. Publishing with PLOS  provides immediate online availability as well as archiving in PubMedCentral and indexing in PubMed and other sites.

The highest ethical standards – The PLOS journals have been leaders in the rigorous reporting of studies and in developing and adhering to ethical standards, with every submission requiring an ethics statement. Unlike many publishers, we don’t accept advertising for drugs or medical devices.

Maximizing research impact – All work published in the PLOS journals is published under a Creative Commons Attribution License, maximizing the opportunity for research to be found and used in education, industry, and further research for an purpose as long as the original article is cited. All authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article and are of course free to re-use their work in any way.

Be in good (and growing) company –PLOS has published more than over 68,000 ‘Gold Open Access’ articles since 2003. PLOS ONE is the largest peer-reviewed journal in the world and publishes more research from the Wellcome Trust, MRC, RCUK, and BBSRC than any other journal. In 2012, PLOS published 11% of the output of the Wellcome Trust.

In the decade that PLOS has been publishing, hundreds of thousands of scientists have trusted PLOS with their research. PLOS has been at the forefront of the Open Access movement and has built a family of journals to suit the needs of researchers from across science and medicine.  The PLOS mission is to lead a transformation in research communication. These new funder requirements will hasten that transformation. Join us in our journey as we work to create the future of science communication.

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