Making your research article open access means that the results of publicly funded research are available:<\/p>\n
If you have an award from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) or one of our councils, you must follow our open access requirements when publishing a research article acknowledging our funding. Exact requirements depend on when you first submitted your article for publication.<\/p>\n
You must follow the UKRI open access policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n This applies to articles that need to acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. This includes funding from:<\/p>\n You must follow the previous research councils’ policy on open access and supporting guidance<\/a>.<\/p>\n This policy applies to:<\/p>\n This is a summary of the policy for peer-reviewed research articles acknowledging UKRI funding, and which are submitted for publication from 1 April 2022.<\/p>\n Additional detail is available, including exceptions, in the full UKRI open access policy and supplementary frequently asked questions (FAQs)<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your research organisation will also be able to advise on complying with UKRI\u2019s policy, funding for open access costs and any local policies and guidance.<\/p>\n The policy applies to peer-reviewed research articles. This includes 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.<\/p>\n You can make your article open access via one of two routes.<\/p>\n You can publish in the journal or platform you consider most appropriate for your research, provided UKRI\u2019s open access requirements are met. You should check with publishers to see if a journal or publishing platform offers a compliant route to the policy.<\/p>\n This can include fully open access journals or publishing platforms, or hybrid subscription journals that offer an open access option, and which offer a compliant route.<\/p>\n You may be able to access UKRI funding for open access publication costs<\/a>. You should speak to your research organisation prior to submission to find out what funding is available to you. UKRI provides this funding via a block grant to research organisations. You cannot usually claim research article publications costs from your grant.<\/p>\n To use UKRI funding to pay for open access costs you must ensure that you are publishing in a journal or platform that is eligible to receive UKRI funding. These are:<\/p>\n Approved transitional agreements are those that meet Jisc open access requirements<\/a>. They are agreed by the UK research sector and help to ensure value for money. If you intend to publish in a hybrid journal that is not part of an agreement, you will need to find an alternative source of funding to meet the publication costs.<\/p>\n As of 1 January 2025, it is not permissible to use UKRI funding towards open access costs in transformative journals. UKRI funds may be used if the article was submitted to a transformative journal before this date.<\/p>\n Some research councils require a version of your research article to also be deposited in a repository. This applies even when the publication is available open access. See the subheading \u2018Deposit requirements for councils\u2019.<\/p>\n Whether publishing via route one or two, prior to submission, you should check your preferred journal or publishing platform will provide a compliant publishing option and is eligible to receive UKRI open access funds (if you expect to pay for open access).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You can:<\/p>\n Note that the Journal Checker Tool incorporates the Jisc information.<\/p>\n You will need to deposit your author\u2019s accepted manuscript in a repository. Many research organisations have a repository you can use, there are also subject repositories that you can use.\u00a0Find available repositories using OpenDOAR<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some research councils require you to use a specific repository. See under the subheading \u2018Depositing research publications in a repository\u2019.<\/p>\n At the point of submission, notify your publisher about licensing of your author\u2019s accepted manuscript. See the subheading, \u2018Notify your publisher about licensing\u2019.<\/p>\n The open access version of your article must have a CC BY licence<\/a> to maximise opportunity for sharing and reuse. You can also use an Open Government Licence<\/a> when authors need to comply with Crown Copyright.<\/p>\n A CC BY licence is appropriate in most cases, but you can apply for an exception to use a creative commons no-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence if you think this is needed.<\/p>\n UKRI\u2019s requirements do not apply to third-party materials in an article, these can be included under a more restrictive licence.<\/p>\n Note that your research organisation may also have local copyright and licensing policies and guidance.<\/p>\n Find resources on copyright and licensing in the guidance on open research<\/a>\u00a0in our good research resource hub.<\/p>\n If intending to publish open access via a repository (route two), include this statement in the acknowledgement section of your manuscript and any submission cover letter or note:<\/p>\n For the purpose of open access, the authors has applied a creative commons attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, \u2018open government licence\u2019 or \u2018creative commons attribution no-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence\u2019 may be stated instead) to any author accepted manuscript version arising.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This ensures it is clear at the point of submission what licence you will apply to your author\u2019s accepted manuscript.<\/p>\n If a publisher rejects your submission, advises you will need to pay for open access, or changes terms of publication, contact your research organisation for advice.<\/p>\n Options could include asking the publisher to accommodate compliance with your funding requirements, making the article open access via an alternative route, or identifying an alternative journal, for example.<\/p>\n You must include a data access statement in your article, even where there is not data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.<\/p>\n This informs readers where the underlying research materials associated with a paper are available, and how the research materials can be accessed. The statement can include links to the dataset, where applicable and appropriate.<\/p>\n Additional guidance can be found in Annex 1 of the UKRI open access policy and supplementary FAQs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some resources about writing data access statements can also be found in the\u00a0guidance on open research<\/a>\u00a0in our good research resource hub.<\/p>\n Some councils require research articles to be deposited in specific repositories.<\/p>\n Whether publishing open access via a journal or repository, biomedical research articles that acknowledge funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) or the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) are required to be archived in Europe PubMed Central. This is in accordance with MRC\u2019s additional terms and conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n NERC Open Research Archive (NORA)<\/a> is the joint repository of outputs produced by researchers at:<\/p>\n Whether publishing open access via a journal or repository, researchers based at these institutions should deposit a copy of their publication in NORA.<\/p>\n You can share your findings early by publishing your manuscript to a preprint server or service before you publish to a formal peer-reviewed publication.<\/p>\n Preprints are not in-scope of the UKRI open access policy. However, to facilitate open research practices, UKRI encourages the use of preprints across the research disciplines that we support.<\/p>\n In cases of national or global emergencies we expect all research findings to be shared as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Some research councils and funding opportunities have specific guidance on preprints:<\/p>\n Check for an existing answer in the UKRI open access policy and supplementary FAQs<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
If you submitted for publication before 1 April 2022<\/h3>\n
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Research articles and the UKRI open access policy: guidance for authors<\/h3>\n
Make your research article immediately open access<\/h4>\n
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If publishing through route one<\/h5>\n
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If publishing through route two<\/h5>\n
Use an open licence<\/h4>\n
Notify your publisher about licensing<\/h4>\n
Include a data access statement in your article<\/h4>\n
Deposit requirements for councils<\/h3>\n
BBSRC and MRC biomedical research<\/h4>\n
NERC Open Research Archive<\/h4>\n
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Publishing preprints<\/h3>\n
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Ask a question about the open access policy<\/h3>\n