Background

We support open research and open access to research for two reasons. First, Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc (TWCF) seeks to support discovery science within Sir John Templeton’s mandate. Such research can have a significant impact, but only if it can earn the trust of the broader scientific community. This is particularly vital for projects that aim to make impactful or contrarian discoveries because they carry a higher burden of proof. 

Second, TWCF has embraced a global mandate to support projects wherever they can have the greatest impact. It is crucial for this vision that the outputs of projects which we support, are openly accessible to anyone with an internet connection. 

The overarching aim of our Open Research (OR) policy is to ensure that knowledge and discoveries resulting from our funding are shared and used in a way that maximizes their benefit.

We support scientific research across a range of disciplines, and appreciate that this policy will have a greater impact in some disciplines than others. We remain committed to providing a supportive environment for our applicants and grantees. If you have any questions or concerns about this policy, please contact the program officer for your grant or application or send an email to open@templetonworldcharity.org.

The Requirement to make Research Articles Open Access

1. All journal publications of  results from research funded by TWCF must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.
    
2. This requirement will apply to any article that includes original, peer-reviewed research and is submitted for publication from 1 January 2021. It will not apply to research articles submitted before 1 January 2021. This requirement will not apply to monographs and book chapters – we are not yet changing our policy for these, but we are keeping it under review. 
    
3. All research articles supported in whole or in part by TWCF must be:
    
   • made freely available through Health Research Alliance (HRA) Open, PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC, or another discipline-appropriate repository, by the official final publication date, and 
   • published under a Creative Commons attribution license (CC-BY), unless we have agreed, as an exception, to allow publication under a CC-BY-ND license. 
      
4. We will provide grantholders with funding to cover reasonable article processing charges (APCs) for articles published in fully OA journals or platforms that: 
    
   • are indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals and comply with the technical guidance and requirements set out by cOAlition S, and
   • have an agreement with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to deposit the version of record in PMC and allow that content to be shared with Europe PMC. 
      
5. We will no longer cover the costs of OA publishing in subscription journals. Grant applicants cannot ask for these costs in their grant application, and grantholders of contracts signed after 1 January 2021 will not be allowed to use their grant funds to pay for these costs. However, from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2024, organizations can use TWCF OA funds for publication costs associated with transformative OA arrangements. 
    
6. TWCF-funded authors or their institutions must retain sufficient rights in their research articles to make a version of the article immediately available under a compliant open licence. Unless granted permission to do otherwise, all submissions of original research to peer-reviewed journals must contain the following statement: “This research was funded in whole or in part by Templeton World Charity Foundation [Grant number]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC-BY public copyright licence to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.” Grant holders must grant a Creative Commons, Attribution licence (CCBY) licence to all their future author-accepted manuscripts reporting original research which was supported in whole, or in part, by our grant funding. By exception, grantees can request a no-derivative variant (CC-BY-ND) for specific articles, prior to submission for publication. To apply for this exception, please contact your grant administrator.
    
7. All research articles supported in whole or in part by TWCF must include a statement explaining how other researchers can access any data, original software or materials underpinning the research.
    
8. Researchers and organizations who do not comply with this policy will be subject to appropriate sanctions. These may include TWCF: 
   • not accepting new grant applications;
   • suspending funding to organizations in extreme cases.

TWCF strongly encourages other best practices in open research

TWCF believes in research transparency and reproducibility and recommends that grantees share all outputs, beyond research articles, publicly during or after the grant period. The following practices are also strongly encouraged:

Preregistration

Preregister any empirical study that involves statistical inference before the start of intervention or data collection. We encourage grantees to preregister their studies by using the Open Science Framework platform (OSF), or similar public registry (e.g., AsPredicted.org, ClinicalTrials.gov). Preregistrations should be shared under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license to enable sharing and reuse.

Preprints

Post a preprint with a CC-BY license before or at the time of submission of an article to a journal in a suitable preprint server that 1) does not put up a paywall or other barrier to access; 2) Assigns a digital object identifier (DOI) to each preprint; 3) Allows the assignment of a CC-BY license. 

Datasets

Submit datasets used in TWCF-funded research to a FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data repository that 1) Assigns a globally unique and persistent identifier (such as a DOI or Accession number); 2) indexes the dataset, metadata, and persistent identifier in a reliable, searchable resource. All relevant dataset files must be described by adequate metadata. Examples of data repositories include Zenodo, Dryad, or subject-specific data . repositories. Assign a CC-BY or CC0 license.  Note that sharing protected health information (PHI) or electronic protected health information (ePHI) is not encouraged unless the data can be fully anonymized. 

Software and Applications

Maintain original code and software developed for use in TWCF-funded research in a reliable code repository, such as GitHub. Reliable code repositories are services that are supported by the coding community and allow for easy export of code. TCWF encourages sharing code used in data analysis reported in the preprint or research article.

Protocols

Share protocols used in original research in an appropriate repository, such as Zenodo, with a persistent identifier and CC-BY or CC0 license. 

Lab and Field Resources

Register lab and field resources used in original research work, such as cell lines, antibodies, novel instruments, and other tangible items, with an appropriate research resource repository. Reliable repositories for resources include Addgene, animal model databases, and other services found through SciCrunch that assign a Research Resource Identifier (RRID) and provide others with information on how to find or use the resource if possible. 

Open Research Resources

Do you wonder when or how you should share a research output publicly? We’ve provided some general guidelines here.