Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Jeffrey S. Flier expressed his appreciation to the HMS Faculty Council for an energized and productive year and thanked those council members who were completing their three-year terms of service. He reported that the nomination process to select candidates to fill the open seats on the council is near completion and that the election ballot will be distributed. The new slate of council members for the 2014 – 2015 academic year would be announced in July. He noted that he is looking forward to working with Priscilla Slanetz, HMS associate professor of radiology, who is the incoming vice-chair, and the council in the coming year.
Dean Flier reviewed the agenda for the meeting, highlighting two important presentations by personnel from the Harvard University Office of Federal Relations. Dean Flier invited Kevin Casey, acting vice president for public affairs and communications, and Suzanne Day, director of federal relations, to present their views of the outlook for federal funding for biomedical research and education. Dean Flier noted that the second item on the agenda is a discussion and consideration of Harvard’s Open Access Policy, with a presentation from Alexa McCray, co-director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics.
Dean Flier then introduced Kevin Casey and Suzanne Day.
Casey described the federal funding environment and highlighted the declining trends in federal research and development funding over the last 30 years. He then discussed the declining funding levels for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and historically low success rates of competing applications. He also suggested that non-competing continuation awards for fiscal year 2014 would likely be funded in the range between the commitment level indicated on the notice of award and three percent below that level.
Casey reported that expenditures under federal sponsorship at the University in fiscal year 2013 totaled $639 million. Of that total, the NIH accounted for $451.7 million, or 70.7 percent of the total expenditures under federal sponsorship. Casey then discussed numerous advocacy efforts underway at the national and state levels in support of federal funding for biomedical research, making the case that the nation is losing its leadership in this area with serious consequences for the economy and the health of America.
A general discussion followed.
Dean Flier introduced the discussion of the Open Access Policy with brief comments and indicated that he supported the policy and that he would ask the council to consider adopting it following McCray’s presentation.
Prior to this meeting, Dean Flier circulated the draft policy to the leadership at the 16 HMS hospital affiliates as well as with the quadrangle preclinical chairs. He asked each person to review the proposed policy and to inform him of any concerns or issues that the current proposal presents. No one voiced questions or objections about the policy, as now drafted.
McCray reported that the University’s Open Access Policy for faculty publications was first adopted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2008. Since that time, all of the other schools at the University have adopted the policy.
McCray explained that the policy is in keeping with the commitment to disseminate the fruits of research and scholarship as widely as possible. By granting the University permission to make available their scholarly articles through the University open-access repository, individual faculty members are able to distribute their scholarly writings freely and without restrictions. Faculty members remain free to publish in the journals of their choice. The only requirement is for the faculty member to make a copy of the manuscript available for deposit in the University repository. McCray noted that the policy now meets the NIH Public Access Policy requirements that streamline the submission of manuscripts to the NIH.
A general discussion followed with faculty members voicing concerns about the implementation date. Peter Suber, director of the Harvard University Library’s Office for Scholarly Communication, stressed that there would be no penalty for not depositing scholarly articles in the Harvard depository upon adoption of the policy and that his office would assist faculty with the process. He provided the depository submittal rate for FAS, at 20 percent. He said that the depository has been receiving approximately 200,000 downloads per month, which is three times the number of loans at all Harvard libraries combined over the past year. When asked how people access these articles, Suber stated that most people get there through Google, Google Scholar or other search engines and not through the Harvard depository directly.
After discussion, and upon motion seconded, it was voted to adopt the Open Access Policy with the understanding that a communications and educational campaign on implementation will be developed before rolling out to faculty. All present voted in favor; no one opposed; and no one abstained.
Dean Flier adjourned the meeting.
