Funder open access policies
All research publications should include acknowledgement of the funding that supported the research, including funder name and grant numbers, and a data access statement. Check the terms and conditions of your research grant for open access obligations; check your funder open access policy. You have options to comply:
- Publish in an open access journal (i.e. listed in DOAJ). If the journal charges publishing fees, your funder may pay these. If no funds are available in the research grant, contact Open Research when you are ready to submit, to request open access funding.
- Publish in a journal included in a publisher agreement. When you are the corresponding author (as defined by the publisher) of an eligible article type, publish open access without publishing fees, as we have already paid for this.
- Publish not open access on the publisher website and deposit the accepted manuscript into a repository, such as our institutional repository ORE, or PubMed Central (self-archiving). If your paper is covered by Rights Retention, your accepted manuscript will be open access in the repository immediately upon publication with CC BY licence, in compliance with most funder policies.
Although we can only pay publishing fees in full open access journals from central funds at the University, your funder may also pay publishing fees in "hybrid" journals as another route to compliance. Check below for more details of your funder open access policy and funding.
Policy: Alzheimer's Society open access policy.
Scope: Peer-reviewed, primary research articles.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). The publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf (you may need to opt in). If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system.
Maximum allowed embargo: six months, in Europe PMC.
Paid open access licence: Not specified.
Source of APC funding: Alzheimer's Society will consider requests to use underspend on grants to pay open access costs - contact the funder to enquire.
Policy: British Heart Foundation open access policy
Scope: Peer-reviewed primary research papers, non-commissioned reviews.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). If you pay to publish open access, the publisher must deposit to PMC. If you do not pay to publish open access, the publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system.
Maximum allowed embargo: six months, in Europe PMC.
Paid open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only).
Source of APC funding: We have a small British Heart Foundation (BHF) open access block grant, administered by Open Research Team. If you are submitting to a fully open access journal (i.e. listed in DOAJ), contact the Open Research team at submission to request open access funding.
Other publication charges: British Heart Foundation do not support payment of other publication charges such as page or colour charges.
Policy link: Cancer Research UK (CRUK) open access policy.
Scope: Peer-reviewed original (i.e. primary data-based) research papers.
Policy: Articles must be open access in PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC immediately upon publication (no embargo)
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). If you pay to publish open access, the publisher must deposit to PMC. If you do not pay to publish open access, the publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system.
Maximum allowed embargo: OA must be immediate upon publication (no embargo)
Paid open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only).
Source of APC funding: The University of Exeter does not have a Cancer Research UK block grant. Researchers may cover APC costs using unspent Cancer Research UK grant funds.
Preprints: Cancer Research UK funded researchers are encouraged to post preprints of their work and publish them under a CC BY licence on a platform that is indexed in Europe PMC.
Compliance tool: check compliance of your chosen journal with CRUK OA policy using Open Policy Finder.
Policy: Diabetes UK open access policy.
Scope: Not specified.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). The publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system. In exceptional circumstances only and with the prior approval of Diabetes UK, Diabetes UK funded researchers may publish in a journal that would not allow the article to be deposited in Europe PubMed Central within six months.
Maximum allowed embargo, for accepted manuscript in a repository: six months, in Europe PMC.
Paid open access licence: Not specified.
Source of APC funding: Where there is an under-spend on a Diabetes UK grant, where the publication has been wholly funded by Diabetes UK, and with the written permission of Diabetes UK, this may be used to meet the cost of open access fees.
Research funders: Horizon 2020 (H2020)
Policy: Horizon 2020 open access to scientific publications and research data
See also the ERC Open Science webpage for an overview of the requirements.
Factsheet: Open Research Europe (ORE) - an open access publishing platform for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research results.
Scope: Peer-reviewed original research articles, monographs and other research publications. For publications that do not primarily report on original results from the ERC-funded research, (such as review papers) the obligations do not apply. However, you are encouraged provide open access to such publications.
Maximum allowed embargo: 6 months (STEM) or 12 months (HASS)
Repository: All outputs should be deposited in a repository at publication, this can include institutional or discipline-specific repositories. A list of recommended repositories is included in ERC open access guidelines, linked from this page.
Paid open access licence: The use of Creative Commons (CC) or similar licences is encouraged; the funder states that "CC BY is a good legal tool for providing open access in its broadest sense".
Source of APC funding: Open access fees are eligible to be charged against Horizon 2020 grants, if incurred during the duration of the project.
Factsheet: Open Science in Horizon Europe
Visit the ERC Open Science webpage for an overview of the requirements.
Research funders: Horizon Europe (2021-2027).
Policy: Open access (OA) requirements taken from HE Model Grant Agreement v1.0 and Annotated Grant Agreement (accessed here 8 August 2021).
Scope: Peer-reviewed scientific publications including articles and long-text formats such as monographs and other types of books.
Requirements: Beneficiaries must ensure immediate OA i.e. at the same time as the first publication, to the Author's Accepted Manuscript or Version of Record through a trusted repository (see below) using specific open licences (see further below).
Compliant publishing venues: Beneficiaries may publish in their venue of choice, whether closed access (subcription-only), hybrid or full OA journal or platform, providing all OA obligations are met. All outputs must be deposited in a repository for immediate OA, including if they are published OA on the publisher website.
The European Commission offer Open Research Europe (ORE) - an OA publishing platform with no publishing fees, for Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research results.
Maximum allowed embargo: No embargo allowed, must be immediately OA in a repository.
Repository: Certified repositories or disciplinary and domain repositories commonly used and endorsed by research communities internationally; general purpose or institutional repositories that present the essential characteristics of trusted repositories. See HE Annex 5 of the Annotated Grant Agreement on this page for more details.
Open access licence: Publications must be licensed under the latest available version of the Creative Commons Attribution International Public Licence (CC BY) or a licence with equivalent rights. For monographs and other long-text formats, the licence may exclude commercial uses and derivative works (e.g. CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND or other equivalent licences).
Copyright: Beneficiaries (or authors) must retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply with the OA requirements.
Data access statement / Validation requirements: Information must be given via the repository (or via the copy of the publication deposited in the repository) about any research output or any other tools and instruments needed to validate the conclusions of the scientific publication. This could include data, software, algorithms, protocols, models, workflows, electronic notebooks and others. Information should include a detailed description of the research output/tool/instrument, how to access it, any dependencies on commercial products, potential version/type, potential parameters, etc
Open access funding: Publishing fees in full OA venues are eligible costs (e.g. a full OA journal or platform, fully OA book). The following are not eligible costs: publication fees in hybrid venues (e.g. a hybrid journal, or book in which some content is OA and some is closed access), page and colour charges, printing fees for monographs and other books.
Policy: The Leverhulme Trust make no stipulations regarding mandatory archiving or open access publication for Leverhulme grant holders, read question 8 on the Leverhulme Trust website.
Source of APC funding: Open access is a permissible cost during the duration of the award, read question 6 on the Leverhulme website.
Research funder: National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR)
NIHR Programmes, NIHR Personal Awards and NIHR Global Health Research Portfolio: research studies where the research costs are funded in whole or in part by the NIHR.
NIHR Infrastructure (including NIHR research units and schools): research studies where the majority of the research costs are funded by the NIHR.
Personal awards that do not fund research are out of scope of this policy.
Policy link: NIHR open access policy
Scope: peer-reviewed articles (including non-commissioned reviews and conference papers) describing NIHR funded research findings
Policy: Version of record or Author Accepted Manuscript must be freely available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final publication date (no embargo).
Submissions to subscription journals must include a Rights Retention statement in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter/note 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 from this submission".
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) Licence; Open Government Licence (OGL) when subject to Crown Copyright; CC BY-ND may be permitted on a case-by-case basis. If using a licence other than CC BY, amend the Rights Retention statement above to reflect your chosen licence.
The licensing requirements do not apply to any materials included within a research article that are provided by third-party copyright holders. The third-party materials in the article can be subject to more restrictive copyright licences than outlined in this policy.
Maximum allowed embargo: No embargo is allowed, open access must be immediate in PMC and EPMC.
Repository: PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC
Source of APC funding: NIHR open access funding webpage.
Data sharing statement: Articles must include a statement describing how the underpinning research data can be accessed. Where there are reasons to protect access to the data, for example commercial confidentiality or sensitivities around data derived from potentially identifiable human participants, these should be included in the statement. NIHR position on the sharing of research data.
Funding acknowledgement: manuscripts must include acknowledgement of funding, including unique identifier and disclaimer, in the funding or acknowledgments section of the manuscript. This should also be included in the funding information requested by the publication on submission, read more here.
Useful resources: NIHR Open Access policy guidance FAQ and compliance checklist
Policy: Parkinson's UK open access policy.
Scope: Original research papers. The policy does not apply to editorials, letters, commissioned reviews, scholarly monographs, conference proceedings or book chapters.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). If you pay to publish open access, the publisher must deposit to PMC. If you do not pay to publish open access, the publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system.
Maximum allowed embargo: six months, in Europe PMC.
Paid open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only).
Source of APC funding: Researchers may use any unspent grant money to pay for APCs or contact Parkinson's UK at researchapplications@parkinsons.org.uk to discuss their options.
Other publication charges: Parkinson's UK do not support payment of other publication charges such as page or colour charges.
Policy: UKRI open access policy
Scope: Peer-reviewed research articles including reviews and conference papers accepted to a journal or conference proceeding with an ISSN, or publishing platform, that are required to acknowledge funding from UKRI or its constituent councils.
Embargo: No embargo is allowed, all in-scope outputs must be open access immediately upon publication.
Repository: BBSRC and MRC funded biomedical research papers should be deposited in PubMed Central. Outputs funded by other councils can comply by deposit in an institutional or subject repository, if not publishing open access on the publisher website.
Open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only). Open Government Licence can be used when a research article is subject to Crown Copyright. Prior to publication you can apply to UKRI for an exception to use CC BY-ND (no-derivatives) licence instead.
Rights Retention: all submissions of articles and conference papers arising from UKRI funding should include a Rights Retention statement at submission, in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in any covering letter: 'For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY licence* to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission'. *If you are using Open Government Licence or have been granted a CC BY-ND exception, this can be stated instead.
Funding acknowledgement: all outputs must acknowledge UKRI funding, including funder name and grant number, as outlined on this page.
Open access funding: The University has a centrally administered UKRI open access block grant. This can be used to pay open access publishing fees in open access journals listed in DOAJ. Contact the Open Research Team when you are ready to submit, to apply for funding. UKRI no longer pay other publication costs such as page or colour charges.
Data access statement: All in-scope articles must include a Data Access Statement, even when there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. More information on the Open Research Resource hub.
Preprints: Preprints are not within scope of the new UKRI open access policy, however UKRI encourages the use of preprints across all research disciplines that they support and may ensure the use of preprints in the context of emergencies. Also see the MRC policy on preprints and the BBSRC policy on preprints.
Useful links: Find more information on the UKRI website at the links below. Visit our website for additional FAQ not listed in the UKRI FAQ document.
Policy: UKRI open access policy
Scope: Monographs, book chapters and edited collections that are required to acknowledge funding from UKRI or its constituent councils. See Annex 1 of the policy for definitions of in-scope and out-of-scope output types.
Open access requirements: The Version of Record or Author's Accepted Manuscript must be freely available to view and download on the publisher's website or online publication platform, or an institutional or subject repository, within 12 months of publication.
You should make your publisher aware of UKRI’s open access requirements at the earliest opportunity. We recommend doing this when you first submit your proposal to the publisher, and prior to entering into any contractual agreement. Contact the Open Research team before committing to publish, for assistance identifying whether the publisher offers a UKRI-compliant publishing option.
Maximum allowed embargo: 12 months.
Open access licence: Open access versions must be published with a Creative Commons (CC) licence. CC BY (only) is preferred but other Creative Commons licences are permitted. An Open Government Licence (OGL) can be used when subject to Crown Copyright.
Images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content should be included in the open access version, where possible. Outputs published under a CC licence may include third-party copyrighted materials that are subject to a more restrictive licence.
Open access funding: UKRI open access monograph fund is now open for applications, to support immediate OA publication of the version of record on the publisher website, with a Creative Commons licence. Researchers should apply to the Open Research team; we will submit a funding application to UKRI on your behalf.
Contact the Open Research team before entering into any contractual agreement with the publisher if you need to apply for UKRI funding to publish your long form output open access. We must obtain confirmation from UKRI that the output is eligible for UKRI funding before you commit to publishing open access, or commit to paying for this.
We can only fund open access publishing fees that have previously been approved as eligible by UKRI.
UKRI will pay a maximum of £8,333.33 plus VAT (£10,000 including VAT) to publish a book or edited collection open access; the maximum for a book chapter is £833.33 plus VAT (£1,000 inclusive of VAT). If your chosen publisher charges more than this, ask them to reduce the cost to UKRI's maximum.
Exemptions: Exemptions may apply where:
- a contract has been signed before January 2024 that prevents adherence to the policy
- the only appropriate publisher, after liaison and consideration, is unable to offer an open access option that complies with UKRI’s policy
- a monograph, book chapter or edited collection is the outcome of a UKRI Training Grant (open access is encouraged but not required)
- reuse permissions for third-party materials cannot be obtained and there is no suitable alternative option available to enable open access publication.
UKRI open access requirements apply to all in-scope UKRI-funded long form outputs and outputs are expected to seek a compliant open access publishing option where possible. Exemptions are a last resort and can only be applied following liaison and discussion with the Open Research team to ensure all relevant steps have been taken. We are required to report all exemptions to UKRI.
Exemptions must be agreed with the Open Research team prior to entering into any contractual agreement with the publisher.
Useful links: Find more information on the UKRI website at the links below.
- UKRI open access policy long form outputs compliance checklist
- UKRI Long form policy open access workflow
- Exeter UKRI long form policy FAQ
- UKRI website Frequently Asked Questions
- Making your monograph, book chapter or edited collection open access
- UKRI open access funding and reporting
- UKRI guidance on managing third party copyright for research publications
Policy: Versus Arthritis open access policy.
Scope: Original research papers. The policy does not apply to editorials, letters, commissioned reviews, non-commissioned reviews, scholarly monographs, conference proceedings or book chapters.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central (PMC). If you pay to publish open access, the publisher should deposit to PMC. If you do not pay to publish open access, the publisher may deposit to PMC on your behalf. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload your manuscript using the Europe PMC manuscript submission system.
Maximum allowed embargo: six months, in Europe PMC.
Paid open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only).
Source of APC funding: Versus Arthritis has a limited budget to pay reasonable open access costs. Authors should apply directly to the funder via Grant Tracker.
Other publication charges: Versus Arthritis do not support payment of other publication charges such as page or colour charges.
Wellcome funded peer-reviewed original research articles
Policy: Wellcome Trust open access policy.
Scope: Peer-reviewed original research articles acknowledging Wellcome Trust funding, wholly or in part.
Repository: All papers must be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC
Embargo: no embargo is allowed, all articles must be open access in PMC and Europe PMC immediately upon publication.
Open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY). Prior to publication, you can apply for an exception to use CC BY-ND (no-derivatives) instead.
Rights Retention: all submissions of original research to peer-reviewed journals should include a Rights Retention statement in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in any covering letter: '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'.
Deposit to PMC: If you pay to publish open access, the publisher must deposit to PMC. If you do not publish open access on the publisher website, the publisher may deposit to PMC. If they do not deposit to PMC for you, upload the accepted manuscript using Europe PMC Plus manuscript submission system.
Open access funding: The University has a centrally administered Wellcome Trust open access fund. This is available to pay APCs in full open access journals (listed in DOAJ) that offer Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) and publisher deposit to PMC. Contact the Open Research team when you are ready to submit, to apply for funds.
Acknowledging funding: all research publications must acknowledge Wellcome Trust support, including funder name and grant number, more details here.
Data access statement: All research articles must include a statement explaining how other researchers can access any data, original software or materials underpinning the research.
Pre-printing: Wellcome Trust funded researchers are strongly encouraged to post preprints of their work and to make them available with a CC BY licence via a platform that is indexed in Europe PMC. Pre-printing is mandated in public health emergencies.
If it's not possible to comply with Wellcome policy by publishing open access or depositing the accepted manuscript in PMC, you can comply using the pre-peer-reviewed (preprint) version. This must be have been published under a CC BY licence on a preprint server indexed in Europe PMC prior to acceptance to a journal.
Useful links:
- Wellcome Trust web page complying with our open access policy
- Wellcome Trust open access compliance flowchart (PDF)
Wellcome Trust funded monographs and book chapters
Policy: Wellcome Trust open access policy.
Scope: Original scholarly monographs and book chapters authored or co-authored by Wellcome grant holders as part of their grant-funded research. The policy does not apply to textbooks, ‘trade’ books, general reference works or works of fiction; or to collections edited, but not authored, by Wellcome grant holders.
Repository: All in-scope monographs and book chapters must be available in National Center for Biotechnology (NCBI) Bookshelf and Europe PubMed Central (PMC).
Maximum allowed embargo: Six months (when you don't pay to publish open access).
Deposit to NCBI Bookshelf / Europe PMC: In scope outputs can be deposited by the publisher or by the author using the monograph and book chapter deposit form.
Open access licence: Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) is strongly preferred. Wellcome Trust also accept other Creative Commons licences including CC-BY-NC (non-commercial) and CC-BY-NC-ND (non-commercial, no-derivatives).
Open access funding: When a publishing fee is paid, works must be open access immediately upon publication with a Creative Commons licence. The Wellcome Trust will fund publisher open access monograph and book chapter publishing fees. Researchers should apply directly to the Wellcome Trust for open access funding.