Among the plans the government hopes will advance its strategy are proposals to establish an Open Data Institute to "ensure that Open Data research is transformed into commercial advantage for UK companies, work with academic centres to increase the number of trained personnel with extensive Open Data skills and provide expert advice for government," BIS said.

The government will also force Research Councils to "ensure the researchers they fund" comply with an existing requirement to "deposit published articles or conference proceedings in an open access repository at or around the time of publication". Currently this is "unevenly enforced," BIS said.

The Research Councils have also committed to investing £2m to develop a 'Gateway to Research' by 2013, BIS said.

"In the first instance this will allow ready access to Research Council funded research information and related data but it will be designed so that it can also include research funded by others in due course," the report said. "The Research Councils will work with their partners and users to ensure information is presented in a readily reusable form, using common formats and open standards".