Funder Open Access requirements

All peer-reviewed research articles arising from research funded by one of the 7 Research Councils and published in academic journals or conference proceedings must be made Open Access. This applies to articles submitted for publication after 1 April 2013.

Both ‘green’ Open Access and ‘gold’ Open Access are acceptable if the journals comply with policy terms, but UK Research and Innovation (formerly RCUK) prefer immediate and unrestricted access to research outputs through ‘gold’ Open Access. For that purpose they give universities a block grant to help cover associated costs, the Article Processing Charges (APCs).

Please note that all papers should acknowledge the supporting grant code and include a data availability statement outlining how underlying research data, samples and/or models can be accessed.

Author actions for ‘gold’ Open Access

• Contact your Unit of Assessment Coordinator to determine if money from the UKRI block grant or other funding may be available for you
• Publish in a journal that provides immediate Open Access on their website and allows your work to be licensed as Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. This is the only licence which is compliant. Restrictive licences such as CC-BY-NC and CC-BY-NC-ND are not compliant.
• MRC-funded papers must also be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) within 6 months of publication
• All scientists funded by BBSRC are encouraged to submit papers to Europe PMC

Author actions for ‘green’ Open Access

• Publish in a journal that allows your paper to be deposited in the SHU Research Archive (SHURA) or a discipline-specific repository under a Creative Commons CC-BY or CC-BY-NC license.  A CC-BY-NC-ND licence is not compliant.
• Your paper must be deposited with an embargo period acceptable to your funder:
  • STEM subjects = 6 months (MRC BBSRC, EPSRC, NERC, STFC)
  • Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences =12 months (AHRC, ESRC)
• MRC-funded papers must also be deposited in Europe PubMed Central with an embargo period of no longer than 6 months. You should check that a journal you are considering publishing in will allow you to comply with this
• All scientists funded by BBSRC are encouraged to submit papers to Europe PMC

Links

• UKRI policy on Open Access: https://www.ukri.org/funding/information-for-award-holders/open-access/
• AHRC: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/
• BBSRC: http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/
• EPSRC: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/
• ESRC: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/
• MRC: http://www.mrc.ac.uk/
• NERC: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/
• STFC: http://www.stfc.ac.uk/

All peer-reviewed scientific publications arising from research funded through the Horizon 2020 programmes of the European Commission are required to be made open access through either the ‘gold’ or ‘green’ route. Researchers are strongly encouraged to provide Open Access to research outputs that are not peer-reviewed as well.

Costs incurred for ‘gold’ Open Access publication during projects are eligible for reimbursement by the European Commission by factoring these costs into the grant application.

All papers should be deposited in a repository to ensure the long-term preservation of the article. The article should be available in the repository:

• when publishing via ‘gold’ Open Access on publication date
• when publishing via ‘green’ Open Access within 6 months of the publication date, or 12 months for the social sciences and humanities

Author actions for Gold OA

• Cost fees for Open Access into grant applications
• Authors are encouraged to retain their copyright and grant adequate licenses to publisher,s such as Creative Commons licences like CC-BY or CC-0
• Deposit a copy of your paper in the SHU Research Archive (SHURA)

Author actions for Green OA

• Publish in a journal that allows your paper to be deposited in the SHU Research Archive (SHURA) and any additional discipline-specific repositories with an embargo period of no longer than 6 months, or 12 months for the social sciences and humanities

Links

• Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020

Peer-reviewed research articles (including review articles not commissioned by publishers, final reports or executive summaries) and conference proceedings arising from research supported through NIHR funding should be made Open Access. The NIHR prefer ‘gold’ Open Access.

The associated costs can be supported through the original NIHR grant. Where appropriate, additional funds may be available from the NIHR through their dedicated Open Access Fund. Researchers should contact the awarding NIHR Programme Coordinating Centre for guidance.

Where NIHR funds are used to pay for Article Processing Charges (APCs) the publication should be published with a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence and allow for immediate deposit of the final published version in other repositories without restriction on re-use.

NIHR requires that the final manuscript must also be deposited with Europe PubMed Central on acceptance to become freely available within six months of the date of publication.

The policy does not cover books, critical editions, volumes and catalogues, or forms of non-peer-reviewed material. However, the NIHR encourages authors of such material to consider making them Open Access where possible.

NIHR has purchased Supporters Scheme membership of BioMed Central. This entitles NIHR researchers to a 15% discount against any APC for a BioMed Central journal, though NIHR researchers remain free to approach any publisher within the scope of the wider policy.

Author actions for Gold OA

• Cost OA fees into grant applications
• If APCs are funded by NIHR, the output should be published under a CC-BY license
• Deposit the final peer-reviewed manuscript with the SHU Research Archive and withEurope PubMed Central on acceptance

Author actions for Green OA

• Publish in a journal that allows your paper to be deposited in Europe PubMed Centralwithin 6 months of publication

Links

• NIHR Open Access policy
• NIHR publications policy