UK Open Access Policies

Primary research paper or non-commissioned review funded wholly or in part by BHF must be made freely available in Europe PubMed Central as soon as possible.

Researchers can choose either self-archiving/green open access, or to opt for gold open access. If self- archiving/green open access is selected, the accepted manuscript must be made available within the maximum specified embargo period.

A block grant is provided to the to the University to support the payment of article processing charges (APCs) and Transformative Agreements. 

Papers have to meet a number of criteria before payments can be made from the block grant. 

A block grant is provided to the to the University to support the payment of article processing charges (APCs) and Transformative Agreements. 

Papers have to meet a number of criteria before payments can be made from the block grant.  

Research Councils 

Research outputs must be made immediately open access upon publication.

This can be achieved either through self archiving using rights retention, or by paying an Article Processing Charge (APC). 

Publications are required to use a CC BY licence unless permission to use a CC BY ND licence has been granted in advance. 

Research funded by MRC or biomedical BBSRC research papers must be made available via EuropePMC upon publication under a CC BY licence. 

No embargo allowed.

A block grant is provided to the University to support the payment of (APCs) and Transformative Agreements. 

Papers have to meet a number of criteria before payments can be made from the block grant. 

Research outputs must be made immediately open access with a CC BY licence upon publication. 

This can be achieved either through self archiving using rights retention, or by paying an Article Processing Charge (APC).

If you are unable to make the Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript open access, then you may post a preprint under a CC BY licence. If using a preprint to ensure compliance, researchers must post it to a preprint server indexed by Europe PMC before final publication of the paper.

All research articles which arise from Wellcome funding must be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final publication date and published under a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY), unless Wellcome Trust has agreed, as an exception, to allow publication under a CC BY-ND licence.  

A block grant is provided to the to the University to support the payment of article processing charges (APCs) for papers publishing in fully open access journals indexed in DOAJ. 

Papers have to meet a number of criteria before payments can be made from the block grant. 

RCUK is providing a £3.5 million fund to support open access costs for long-form outputs. Research organisations submit requests to RCUK to use the funds.

The request process is a two-stage process that involves securing an in-principle agreement and a subsequent application for reimbursement. 

Grant holders can make a request to Wellcome for supplemental funds to cover monograph open access publishing by contacting openaccess@wellcome.org: 

They should provide the following information: 

• the grant holder's current employing organisation 

• title of the monograph or book chapter 

• Wellcome grant reference number 

• publisher name 

• proposed date of publication 

• cost of the open access fee.

Journal articles and conference proceedings to be made open access with an open licence. 

Upload your accepted manuscript to Elements at the time of acceptance.

Published before the end of 2025:

STEM: 12 months 

HASS: 24 months

Published after the end of 2025:

STEM: 6 months 

HASS: 12 months

Articles are to be made available through Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) as soon as possible. 

Researchers can choose either to self archiving/green open access, or to opt for gold open access. If self- archiving/green open access is selected, the accepted manuscript must be made available within the maximum specified embargo period.

Research should be published in a journal that makes the findings available using the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). Articles are to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) as soon as possible.

NIHR's policy changed on 1 June 2022. Articles submitted after this date must be made freely available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final publication date, without any embargo period, using the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

6 months

(no embargo allowed for papers submitted on or after 1 June 2022).

Funds to pay for immediate (Gold) Open Access to comply with this policy should have been included in your original NIHR grant, or they may be available from the NIHR. 

NIHR have introduced a ring-fenced pot of funding to research grants, called an 'envelope', which will be used to pay for open access publishing.

The envelopes will be applied to contracts issued from the 1st of June 2022. 

Parkinson's UK

Articles are to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) as soon as possible.

Researchers can choose either to self- archiving/green open access, or to opt for gold open access. If self- archiving/green open access is selected, the accepted manuscript must be made available within the maximum specified embargo period.

The British Academy

The Royal Society

The Royal Society’s Research publication policy expects that as a minimum, award holders should follow green routes for open access by publishing in a journal which allows deposit of the accepted manuscript version in an institutional or subject repository with no embargo period on access.

The Royal Society will allow the use of funding to cover fair and reasonable article processing charges (APCs) for articles published in journals or platforms with immediate open access under CC-BY licence.

Articles are to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) as soon as possible

Researchers can choose either to self archiving/green open access, or to opt for gold open access. If self- archiving/green open access is selected, the accepted manuscript must be made available within the maximum specified embargo period.