A Wel(l)come development: research funders and open access

This paper discusses the implications of the Wellcome Trust agreement with Blackwell, OUP and Springer in which authors of accepted papers are able to pay an open-access publication charge to make their article freely available online. In bringing together flexible licence terms and clear funding streams, the agreement has the potential to be used as a way of migrating towards possible new business models for journal publishing. It also has the potential, if implemented more widely, to deliver greater open access in such a way as to work in the interests of a broad range of stakeholders.