Rights retention is an opportunity for the sector to challenge the existing paradigm. Implementation of funders’ rights retention policies has prompted many academic institutions to take even stronger steps towards supporting their researchers to retain rights by adopting Institutional Rights Retention Policies (IRRPs). We have been supporting all UK higher education institutions (HEIs) in accelerating the implementation of IRRPs through a dedicated project.
Adopting and managing institutional rights retention policies
The second phase of the project supported and accelerated the implementation of IRRPs within Jisc member HEIs. Our Institutional rights retention policies task and finish group (T&FG) was convened to provide effective advice and guidance in support of the community and helped us devise a programme of engagement; you may have read the recent guest blog by Ruth Harrison on Imperial’s journey towards am IRRP, or attended our ‘IRRP question time’ webinars.
Question time
The resources from both IRRP question time webinars are available via the dedicated IRRP channel on the Digital research community group Teams site (find out how to join further down) and you can read more about sessions 1 & 2. We wanted to thank all our panellists again for doing a sterling job in answering tricky queries.
Responding to the sector
During the second webinar, we used a live poll to see what else the sector wanted us to do. The 66 participants who responded all said we should do more in this space and we are pleased to do so in association with our partners SCONUL and RLUK.
Following the most recent meeting of the T&FG, we now have two valuable documents which can act as templates for writing an informative report for your key decision-making committee (e.g., a research committee or even senate). These documents can be adapted to a variety of scenarios and have been added to the files tab on the IRRP Teams channel.
Developing a roadmap
We are also currently reviewing some feedback from members and are looking to develop a generic roadmap towards successful implementation of IRRPs which you again will be able to adapt to your particular situation. We are considering a drafting workshop where we can jointly work through some issues of getting a policy in place.
Growing the community
If you work for a UK HEI, you can gain access to the Jisc Digital Research community IRRP channel (request access here) where we are discussing the issues of implementing IRRP policy and where we have shared several other templates of letters, presentations and workflows and a publisher contact list.
We want to grow this collection of resources in the IRRP channel; if you would like to share anything that helped you and your institution on your IRRP journey, please get in touch via Teams or email (mail to: peter.findlay@jisc.ac.uk).
And not only is the community there for you to share ideas and resources, it is there for you to support each other! Start discussions, answer enquiries, and learn from each other.
