Other funder policies

Charity Open Access Fund (Wellcome Trust and others)

Six medical research charities have formed the Charity Open Access Fund (COAF):Arthritis Research UK, Bloodwise, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Parkinson's UK and the Wellcome Trust.

If your research is funded by any of these funders, you must comply with their OA requirements. These funders prefer Gold OA; provided your publisher complies with their Gold requirements, you are strongly advised to choose this option.

Requirements

• OA is required for peer reviewed research articles
• Wellcome funded scholarly monographs and book chapters must also comply
• COAF funds may also be used for study protocols and non-commissioned reviews
• The work must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central as soon as possible, and no later than six months after publication
• The Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence is required for Gold OA. (Wellcome permits CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NC-ND for books and book chapters, though CC-BY is preferred.)

Other funders (selected)

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

All research and data to be made OA under a CC-BY licence without embargo. Gold publication is currently supported, with the Foundation paying for fees - however, from 2025 the Foundation will no longer pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) or other OA fees, instead mandating Green publication of preprints. See the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Open Access Policy for further information.

Department for International Development (DFID)

Gold OA preferred for peer-reviewed articles: costs to be budgeted for in grant applications. Green permitted where Gold not available: manuscripts to be made available through R4D repository within 6 months of publication.

Diabetes UK

Articles to be made available through Europe PubMed Central within 6 months of publication, via Green or Gold OA. Fees can be paid using any underspend on existing grants (no other OA funding provided).

Dunhill Medical Trust

Peer reviewed articles to be made available through Europe PubMed Central within 6 months of publication, via Green or Gold OA. The Trust will contribute to Gold fees on a sliding scale depending on size of award (e.g. up to £1,000 OA contribution for grants up to £50,000). OA costs should not be included in grant applications. CC-BY licence required if Gold fees paid.

European Research Council (ERC)

For currently active grants: OA fees can be charged against the grant, provided they are incurred during the project. Research articles, monographs or other research publications to be made available through an OA repository within 6 months (STEM subjects) or 12 months (Social Sciences and Humanities subjects) of publication, via Green or Gold OA.

Jisc

Published research papers and conference proceedings to be made available through an OA repository within 6 months of publication, via Green OA.

Leverhulme Trust

Although the Trust does not mandate OA, it will fund OA charges - providing they are incurred during the life of the grant. Fees should be included in grant applications for Grant-funded researchers, or in the research expenses category for Fellowships.

National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (Nc3rs)

Articles, conference papers and non-commissioned reviews to be made available through PubMed Central (PMC) within 6 months of publication, via Green or Gold OA. CC-BY licence required if Gold fees paid. Payment of fees can be made from the OU's RCUK Open Access fund.

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)

All peer reviewed articles (including reviews that are not commissioned by  the publisher) and conference items submitted on or after the 1st June 2022.

The Author's Accepted Manuscript or Version of Record must be deposited and be freely available on PubMed Central or European PMC by the official publication date without any embargo period.

Licence required is a CC BY  or an Open Government Licence (when the article is subject to Crown Copyright). A CC BY-ND licence may be permitted on a case-by-case basis.

Articles must have appropriate acknowledgment of NIHR and must include a data sharing statement describing where the underpinning data can be accessed. 

From 1st June all eligible research award contracts will have an open access funding envelope awarded to them in addition to the approved cost of the award. From 1st April 2022 open access costs can not be included in the funding bid.

The full NIHR policy has more detail and NHIR have provided the NIHR Open Access compliance checklist.

Articles submitted before 1st June 2022 will need to comply with the previous NIHR Open Access Policy. Peer reviewed research articles (including review articles not commissioned by publishers, final reports or executive summaries) to be made available through Europe Pubmed Central within 6 months of publication, via Green or Gold OA. Gold OA requires a CC BY licence and must allow deposit of the full-text in other repositories without restrictions on access.

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Peer-reviewed articles to be made available through PubMed Central within 12 months of publication, via Green OA. NIH will accept the final published article in lieu of the final peer-reviewed manuscript (providing the author has the right to deposit this version). Gold publication fees may be charged to NIH grants and contracts.

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Effective from 1/1/2016. Peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings to be made available through an OA repository within 12 months of publication, via Green or Gold OA. Further details to come.

Parkinson's UK

Policy only applies to peer-reviewed journal articles. Prefer gold and will pay OA charges. Must be deposited in PubMed Central (PMC) or other PMC International (PMCI) site within 6 months of publication. Green is permitted and the embargo period stipulated by the publisher should be no more than 6 months.

Royal Society

The Royal Society strongly encourages Award Holders to publish peer-reviewed accepted articles and conference proceedings in OA journals. Preference for Gold OA, but as a minimum, expect deposit of accepted version ('postprint') in a repository via Green OA with a maximum embargo of 12 months from the date of publication. They will waive OA fees for Royal Society funded research fellows if they publish in one of the Royal Society journals.