University College London (UCL) became the latest institution to adopt an open-access publishing policy this week, adding to the rapid increase in such mandates over the past year.

The policy, announced on 3 June, will see all of the university's research placed online in an institutional free-to-access repository — but only where publishers' copyright rules allow. The system will take effect from the beginning of the 2009–10 academic year.

"Open-access mandates [from institutions and funding bodies] have almost doubled globally in the year that has elapsed since Harvard's mandate in May 2008," says Stevan Harnad, an advocate of open access at the University of Southampton, UK. 

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