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UKRI Open Access Policy – Journal Articles

The UKRI open access policy applies to publications funded by the UK Research Councils (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC), Innovate UK, and Research England.

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) research councils Open Access Policy  applies to In-scope research articles submitted for publication on or after 1st April 2022.

In-scope research articles are defined as:

“Peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers, that are accepted for final publication in either a journal, conference proceeding with an International Standards Serial Number (ISSN), or publishing platform.”

Funded by one or more of the following research councils:

  • Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
  • Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
  • Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
  • Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
  • Innovate UK
  • Medical Research Council (MRC)
  • Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
  • Research England
  • Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

All articles must:

Universities that have a high volume of UKRI funding receive block-grants to enable them to pay for APCs that result from their funding.  UON does not currently meet that threshold and therefore does not receive a block grant to cover UKRI funded research outputs.  If you are working on a joint publication it is advised that the corresponding author should be from an institute that is in receipt of a UKRI block grant (UKRI will not refund UON for the cost of any APC) funding for payment of APC’s must meet UON’s requirements.

To comply with UKRI’s policy:

  • Route 1: Publish in a fully open access journal or publishing platform which makes the publishers version immediately open access upon publication, (this includes journals that UON has read and publish deals with (Springer, Taylor and Francis, Wiley, Sage).
  • Route 2: Publish in a subscription journal and deposit the Author’s Accepted Manuscript in out institutional repository (Pure) on immediately on acceptance, updating the record as soon as it is published.
  • This version must be made immediately open access upon publication. A publisher requested delay or ‘embargo period’ is not permitted.
  • For the article to be published under Route 2, submissions must include the following text after the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter accompanying the submission:

‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’.

MRC & BBSRC funded articles:

For either open access route, biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding are required to be archived in Europe PubMed Central, in accordance with MRC’s Additional Terms and Conditions and BBSRC’s Safeguarding Good Research Policy.

UKRI Open Access Policy – Longform Publications

Applies to books, chapters and edited works which acknowledge UKRI funding.

If a UKRI funded researcher signs a contract with a publisher on or after 1 January 2024, any long-form publication must be made open access within 12 months of publication under a Creative Commons licence.

UKRI aim to support a variety of open access publishing models that result in immediate open access with a Creative Commons licence. To manage the fund, they have set maximum levels of funding that UKRI will contribute towards the cost of publishing open access. The maximum limits are as follow:

  • £10,000 (including VAT) for entire monographs and edited collections
  • £1,000 (including VAT) for book chapters
  • £6,000 for non-book processing charge models where one eligible UKRI output is published (note these models are also referred to as diamond models, collective models, or subscribe to open models)

An additional £3,000 is also available where two or more UKRI publications from the same institution are published under the same model.

VAT is not charged in the UK for these models, but where VAT is chargeable, this is included in the maximum funding level.

The limits do not apply to the type of publisher, they apply to the type of open access model that is being used.

Supporting third-party material costs

UKRI allows authors to request costs for third party materials in research grant applications and this is the usual way that UKRI funding supports this activity. However, it will be permitted to claim up to £2,000 via the fund, but within the above maximum limits.

Seven year threshold

There will be a seven year threshold for publications to be eligible for support from UKRI’s fund. This means that if a monograph, book chapter, or edited collection is published seven or more years after the formal end of a UKRI funded project, then it will no longer be eligible for support via UKRI’s fund, and therefore they do not expect the publication to be open access. There will be flexibility to accommodate extenuating circumstances.

Copyright and licensing guides for researchers  

Jisc have developed a guide on copyright and creative commons licences: Publishing under the UKRI open access policy: copyright and Creative Commons licences – Jisc.

UKRI have also published a complementary guide on managing third party materials in open access publications: Guidance on managing copyright under UKRI open access policy – UKRI.

Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust open access policy for journal articles applies to all articles that are wholly or partially funded by the Wellcome Trust.

All research articles should be published with a CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution) Licence unless an exception for a CC BY ND (Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives) licence has been approved.

Ensuring Compliance in 3 paths

Path 1 and 2

Publish in a:

  • fully Open Access (OA) journal
  • subscription journal covered by a transformative agreement with UON

Transformative Agreements are currently in place with UON and:

  • Elsevier
  • Sage
  • Springer
  • Taylor & Francis
  • Wiley

How to identify compliant journals

  • Fully open access journals and platforms:  Search the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). An Article Processing Charge (APC) is payable – approval required from Head of REF & Research Support.
  • Subscription journals in UONs transformative agreements: Publish open access in a subscription journal which is operating under an approved transformative agreement or is designated as a transformative journal.
  • Transformative journals: Use the Plan S Journal Checker Tool to find out if the journal is a compliant transformative journal.  An article processing charge (APC) is payable.

UON does not receive a block grant for funding open access from Wellcome Trust and must pay for the APC first, before being refunded – please email research@northampton.ac.uk prior to submitting any output for publication that has been funded by the Wellcome Trust.

When publishing gold open access, you must include the submission statement in the acknowledgment section of your manuscript detailed below in Path 3.

Path 3

Publish in a:

  • subscription journal and make the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) freely available in PubMed Central and Europe PMC at the time of publication (Note: Upload to PURE is also required)
  • Submitted manuscripts must include the following text in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript: ‘This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number xxxxx]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’

Identifying compliant journals

Before submitting your article you can check which publishers will allow immediate open access of the accepted manuscript in repositories with a CC BY licence by:

  • Publisher websites: You can find permissions for the use of accepted manuscripts in repositories in publishers’ ‘self-archiving’ or ‘green open access’ pages
  • Sherpa Romeo open access policy search tool: Search for the journal title, then select ‘Accepted Manuscript’ in the publisher policy section

If in doubt – email Research@Northampton.ac.uk for further clarification.

Wellcome Trust have advised that if the publisher does not allow this, then you must choose a different publisher to publish with.  It may be worth contacting the publisher directly to seek permission for your article, as it is a condition of your funding.  Some publishers will grant permission on request.

If the publisher accepts your submitted manuscript with the retention rights statement, but then requests that you sign a contract or copyright transfer agreement with different terms and conditions follow these steps:

  1. Request an article processing charge waiver if they offer a paid for open access fee (Wellcome Trust will not pay this charge)
  2. If the waiver is declined, request an amendment to the publishing agreement (use the template provided by Wellcome)
  3. If the first two steps are rejected email Wellcome

Deposit to Europe PubMed Central

All articles must be made available open access in Europe PMC (PMC) by the official date of publication to comply with the policy, most publishers will do this on your behalf, check with the publisher prior to publishing.

Licensing requirements

All research articles should be published with a CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution) licence, unless a licensing exception has been approved.

On submission

All Wellcome funded research articles must include the following statement in all submitted research articles to ensure the accepted manuscript can be made freely available in Europe PubMed Central and CRO:

‘This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number xxxxx]. 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.’

Licensing exception

In extenuating circumstances you can request permission to use a CC-BY-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Derivatives) Licence. To do so:

  • Complete the CC BY-ND exception form
  • Ensure your request has been approved before submitting your article
  • If approved, you must add the following statement to your submitted manuscript: ‘This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number xxxxx]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY-ND public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.’

Licence for Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM)

All accepted manuscripts must be granted a CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution) licence.

Acknowledgement of funding

You must include acknowledgement of funding in any research article funded by Wellcome Trust. It must:

  • be included in the funding or any other relevant section
  • contain the name(s) of your funder(s) in full
  • contain all grant reference numbers in square brackets.

This applies even if you are not the corresponding author.

Data access statement

All Wellcome funded research articles should include a statement explaining how other researchers can access any data, original software or materials underpinning the research.

Further information can be found on the following Wellcome webpages:

Horizon 2020

All Horizon 2020 peer-reviewed articles are covered by Open Access requirements.

Monographs, books, conference proceedings and reports are not mandated, but Open Access is encouraged.

The policy requires that either the published article or accepted manuscript be deposited in a repository no later than publication. Maximum embargoes are six months for sciences and 12 months for arts, humanities and social sciences. Data sharing is encouraged but there is no obligation, except for projects covered by the Open Data Research Pilot. 

Repository records must include the following metadata:

  • the terms [‘European Union (EU)’ and ‘Horizon 2020’][‘Euratom’ and ‘Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018’];
  • the name of the action, acronym and grant number;

When uploading outputs to Pure, please include this information in the Funding field and Funding Details.

Open Access costs are eligible expenses that can be claimed from your research grant and should be budgeted for in grant applications. The current average APC is approximately £1,750 + VAT.

Horizon Europe ERC

  • The obligations of the grant agreement related to open access apply to all peer-reviewed scientific publications related to results from the project. This means in particular that they apply regardless whether the underlying research has been supported in whole or only in part by the ERC.

    Before publishing results related to your Horizon Europe ERC-funded project, you are required by your grant agreement to take the following steps:

    Acknowledge ERC funding

    For all kinds of publications, acknowledge EU support through a funding statement, and where feasible, display the EU emblem.

    Funding statement and disclaimer: “Funded by the European Union (ERC, acronym, project number). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”

    This also applies to other outputs of your project (see ‘Communicating your research‘).

    In addition, when you deposit your publications in Pure, make sure that you enter the required metadata, especially the funding programme (Horizon Europe), your ERC grant number and the grant acronym, so that your publications can be linked to your ERC project.

    Select the publishing venue of your choice, taking into account your contractual obligations, and submit your manuscript.

    You must ensure that the authors (or the host institution) retain sufficient intellectual property rights, namely immediate deposition under a CC BY or equivalent license (for long-text publications the license can exclude commercial uses and/or derivative works).

    On acceptance, immediately deposit the publication in pure

    Option 1 If you publish in a full open access journal or book, or on a full open access publishing platform:

    • Publishing fees (including APCs/BPCs, but also e.g. page charges or colour charges) are eligible costs if incurred during the lifetime of your project and in line with the provisions of your grant agreement. This also applies to books to the extent that they cover the first digital open access edition of the book. Printing fees for monographs and other books are NOT eligible.
    • Deposit the publication (generally the VoR) in Pure on acceptance.
    • Provide immediate open access on publication through Pure (make sure you update the record in Pure with the date of publication).

    Option 2 If you publish in a subscription or hybrid journal, in a book for which some parts are not open access, or on a publishing platform that does not provide all of its scholarly content in open access:

    • Self-archive the publication (usually the AAM) in Pure on acceptance, updating immediately on publication and provide immediate open access to it through the repository, under a licence that is among those permitted by the grant agreement.
    • Note that publishing fees of any kind (APCs/BPCs but also page charges, colour charges etc.) are not eligible costs for the ERC.

    Note: the deposited publication version of the publication must have a CC BY licence.

    Provide open metadata and information needed for the validation of the conclusions presented in the publication

    Immediately provide information, via the repository, about research outputs or other tools and instruments that third parties would need if they wanted to validate your conclusions.

    Metadata of deposited publications must be open under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC 0) or equivalent, in line with the FAIR principles (Findable,  Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable), in particular machine-actionable.

    Make sure that all the metadata required in the grant agreement are provided (in particular the funding programme (Horizon Europe), the ERC grant number and the grant acronym).

  • ERC projects do not have scientific work packages or deliverables. However, all Horizon Europe-funded ERC projects have a Research Data Management work package:

    • Add a work package in your grant agreement called “Research Data Management”.
    • Associate one deliverable with the work package, called “DMP – Data Management Plan”. This deliverable has to be of the type “Data Management Plan”; the due date must be set to “6 months” (meaning you will have until the end of month 6 of project implementation to submit the DMP).
    • No further details or descriptions are needed.
    • You also have to decide about the dissemination level of your Data Management Plan: “sensitive” or “public”. In the latter case, it will appear on the CORDIS page of your project (see Cordis Projects) as soon as it has been accepted by the Agency.

    Submit a data management plan (DMP) at the latest at the end of month 6 of project implementation.

    Writing a DMP is directly linked to the methodology of your research. Good research data management will make your work more efficient, contribute to safeguarding information and to increasing the impact and the value of the data among the beneficiaries and others, during and after the research.

    The ERC proposes a DMP template. You are welcome to adapt it or use a different template, as long as you cover the FAIR principles and in addition outline the allocation of resources as well as data security. Also explain whether and why you will not give access to specific parts of your research data. If necessary, the ERC Scientific Officer who follows the progress of your project may contact you concerning your Data Management Plan.

    Once your project has generated research data:

    • Deposit the research data (or other outputs) in Pure.
    • Ensure (open) access to the deposited research data, within the deadlines set out in your DMP.
    • You must provide open access to research data under the principle ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. In general, you should deposit data generated or collected by the project as soon as possible after data production/generation or after adequate processing and quality control have taken place (for dynamic data, a snapshot of the data is enough). This should happen at the latest by the end of the project, and does not entail that data are immediately open, but rather that they have been deposited so that metadata information is available and hence information about the data is findable.
    • License the research data or dedicate them to the public domain. Make your data available under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights, or the latest version of the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) or equivalent, which waives any rights to the data.
    • Provide information via Pure about any research output or any other tools and instruments needed to re-use or validate the data.
    • Metadata of deposited research data must be open under a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) or equivalent (to the extent legitimate interests or constraints are safeguarded), in line with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable), in particular machine-actionable. Make sure that all the metadata required in the grant agreement are provided (in particular the funding programme (Horizon Europe), the ERC grant number and the grant acronym.

  • You can allocate funds from your ERC grant to costs related to scientific publications and to storage and maintenance of research data generated by the ERC funded project.

    When budgeting costs, make a first estimate of the fees you expect to incur for publications. It may be helpful to consider your target publication venues and the typical fees levied for the modality that would allow you to comply with the requirements of your grant agreement. You can flexibly adapt the budget for publications during your project, always within the granted overall budget.

    Costs for publishing in full open access venues (such as full open access journals, books, or platforms), including APCs, BPCs and other publishing fees (such as colour charges or page charges) are in principle eligible for reimbursement. The costs must be incurred during the lifetime of the grant, and you must also comply with the other conditions of your grant agreement.

    Note that fees for publications in hybrid or subscription journals are not eligible for reimbursement from your ERC grant. This includes so-called ‘transformative journals’, for which no exception applies. On the other hand, so-called ‘mirror journals’ or ‘sister journals’ of subscription journals are considered to be full open access journals; publication fees in such journals are in principle eligible for reimbursement. Transformative Agreements may help you to publish in hybrid journals without having to worry about how to pay the related publishing costs.

    Note that publication fees for books that are not fully open access (or for chapters in such books) are not eligible for reimbursement from your ERC grant. Publishing fees for open access books are in principle eligible to the extent that they cover the costs of the first open access digital edition. Printing fees for monographs and other books are NOT eligible.