Concordats and grants policies

The Academy is a signatory of the following concordats/declarations:

• The Concordat on Openness on Animal Research

AMS award holders, please read the brief on how this signatory affects your award.

This Concordat outlines best practise for being more open about animal research. The four commitments that signatories make are to: be clear about when, how and why animals are used in research; enhance communications with the media and the public about research using animals; be proactive in providing opportunities for the public to find out about research using animals; and report on progress annually and share experiences.

• UK clinical academic training in medicine and dentistry: principles and obligations

This document sets out principles and obligations of all UK institutions and clinical trainees in receipt of nationally competitive funding for clinical academic research training.

• Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)

DORA recognises the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scientific research are evaluated. It sets out 18 recommendations for change in scientific culture, particularly in relation to the use of Journal Impact Factors to assess scientists for decisions on funding, appointment and promotion. We have made changes to our processes to align with this declaration, e.g. an extra question was added to our grant application forms to give applicants a chance to explain how three of their publications have impacted their field of research - this is to avoid impact being indirectly assessed by correlating with the impact factor of the journal within which it is published.

The Academy is a supporter of the following concordats/declarations:

• The Concordat to Support Research Integrity

This Concordat provides assurances to government, the wider public and the international community that research in the UK continues to be underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity. Its five commitments are to: provide better coordination of existing approaches to research integrity; enable more effective communication of efforts to ensure that the highest standards of rigour and integrity continue to underpin all our research; encourage greater transparency and accountability at both institutional and sector levels; and stimulate reflection on current practices to identify where improvements can be made. We work with our Fellowship to ensure that we support research of the highest quality at institutions that comply with this Concordat.

• The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers

This Concordat sets out seven key principles on the expectations and responsibilities of researchers, their managers, employers and funders. It aims to increase the attractiveness and sustainability of research careers in the UK and to improve the quantity, quality and impact of research for the benefit of UK society and the economy. We provide career development support to clinical and non clinical biomedical researchers through events, workshops, mentoring and other schemes.

• The Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research

This Concordat aims to create a greater focus on and help embed public engagement with research across all disciplines in the higher education and research sectors. The four key principles are: UK research organisations have a strategic commitment to public engagement; researchers are recognised and valued for their involvement with public engagement activities; researchers are enabled to participate in public engagement activities through appropriate training, support and opportunities; signatories and supporters will undertake regular reviews of their and the wider research sector’s progress in fostering public engagement across the UK. The Academy run a programme of public events which provide opportunities for our Fellows and grant awardees to share their research with public audiences. Please contact holly.rogers@acmedsci.ac.uk for information on how to participate in this programme.

Open Access position statement                

The Academy of Medical Sciences' mission is to promote medical science and its translation into benefits for society. The Academy believes unrestricted online access to scientific publications for all - Open Access (OA) - supports this ambition. We therefore will work to build awareness of, and support for, OA amongst our Fellows. We recommend that Fellows maximise the opportunities to make their results freely available and publish peer-reviewed research articles in Open Access journals, where possible.

As research funder, we will require that awardees: 

• Ensure that articles should be available immediately upon publication, or within six months of the publication date, through utilising either a Gold or Green route to OA.
• While the Academy will not fund OA fees separately from our research award, where a publication has been funded wholly by the Academy of Medical Sciences, under-spend on an AMS grant may be used to meet the cost of OA fees.
• Where possible, researchers should seek to retain copyright.  Adopting a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license is recommended as it enables re-use of publications via text- and data-mining.