UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Open Access policy

Requirements: for articles and conference proceedings submitted for publication on or after 1st April 2022

If you are funded by the AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC or STFC, you must comply with the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Open Access (OA) Policy. For articles submitted on or after the 1st April 2022, the policy also includes Research England and Innovate UK but not UK Space Agency (UKSA).

The policy applies to peer-reviewed research articles that acknowledge UKRI funding. This includes reviews and conference papers that are accepted for final publication in either a journal, a conference proceeding with an international standard serial number (ISSN), or on a publishing platform. 

You can make your article open access via one of two routes:

• Route one: publish the article open access in a journal or a publishing platform. The Version of Record (final published version) must be immediately open access via its website with a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) licence. Funds for Gold OA may be available from the UKRI Open Access Block Grant. 
• Route two: publish the article in a subscription journal and deposit the Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) (or Version of Record, where the publisher permits) at the time of publication in an institutional or subject repository with a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) licence. A publisher embargo period is not permitted. 

The AAM is the author's version of a research article that has been peer reviewed and is accepted for publication, prior to typesetting by the publisher. It may otherwise be known as the 'author manuscript' or 'final author version' or post print. 

If you are intending to publish open access via route 2, and the journal does not allow deposit with  a CC BY licence and a zero embargo, include this statement in the acknowledgement section of your manuscript and any submission cover letter/note: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence [where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead] to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising'.

You can apply to UKRI for an exception to use a Creative Commons No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence by using the UKRI No-derivatives licence exception form.

You can publish in the journal or publishing platform you consider most appropriate for your research, provided UKRI's open access requirements are met.

UKRI also requires in-scope research articles to incude a Data Access Statement, even where there is no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible. Further guidance is available in Annex 1 in the UKRI policy and examples are provided in UKRI’s good research resource hub.

How do I know if the journal I intend to publish in is compliant?

For route 1:

Look at the journal webpage to determine if it is:

• a fully open access journal (if it is it will be listed on the Directory of Open Access Journals) and offers a CC BY licence OR 
• a hybrid journal that offers a CC BY licence. The journal will need to be included in a transitional open access agreement that meet the Jisc requirements. These are the Transitional Agreements that the Library has, which cover publishing costs. There is a also a Jisc Transitional Agreement Lookup tool you can use to check.
• The Journal Checker Tool (JCT) can help you find out whether journals offer a compliant publishing option that is eligible for UKRI funding. Use the code 05mzfcs16 in the 'my institution' box.

For route 2:

• The journal will need to have a self-archiving policy that permits depositing the Author's Accepted Manuscript (AAM) on an institutional or subject repository with a CC BY licence and a zero embargo. Information on journals self-archiving policies can be found on the Sherpa Romeo website.
• If you are intending to publish open access via route 2 and the journal does not allow deposit with a CC BY licence and a zero embargo, include the following statement, provided by UKRI, in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript you submit, any submission cover letter/note, and the AAM you will deposit on ORO: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence [where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead] to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising'.

If you are unsure if the journal you intend to publish in is compliant with the UKRI Open Access Policy, please contact the Library Research Support team.

How to Access the UKRI block grant

Requirements: for monographs, book chapters and edited collections (published from the 1st January 2024) 

The policy includes a new requirement for monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from the 1st January 2024 to be made open access (unless a contract has been signed between the author and the publisher before this date that prevents adherence to the policy. However, UKRI strongly encourages authors and publishers to make publications open access). This applies to publications that need to ackowledge funding from UKRI or any of its councils. This includes funding from the AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC, Research England and Innovate UK. In-scope long-form outputs are detailed at Annex 1 in the UKRI Open Access policy.

You must make your long-form output open access within 12 months of publication and use an open license. In summary, the core requirements of the policy are:

• your final Version of Record or Author's Accepted Manuscript must be free to view or download via an online publication platform, publisher's website, or institutional or subject repository within a maximum of 12 months of publication
• images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content should be included in the open access version, where possible
• the open access version of your publication must have a Creative Commons license, with a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license preferred. An Open Government license is also permitted. (This requirement does not apply to third party materials included in your publication).

These requirements and definitions of in-scope and exempt types of publication are further detailed in the UKRI Open Access Policy.

Choosing a publisher

You can choose the publisher most appropriate for your research, provided UKRI's open access requirements are met. When you contact your preferred publisher, you should inform them that your publication is in scope of the UKRI open access policy and check if they can offer a compliant open access publishing platform. 

If you are publishing a monograph or edited collection, you should consider UKRI’s open access requirement prior to submission of your book proposal. If you are contributing a book chapter in an edited collection, you should inform both the editor of the collection you are contributing to and the publisher of UKRI’s open access requirement prior to agreeing to contribute. 

Many publishers offer open access of the final Version of Record. They may charge for open access, or offer free open access suppoted via alternative funding models, such as subscribe to open models, for example. See details on funding for open access monographs, chapters and edited collections below.

Some publishers may not offer open access but may permit you to deposit your Author's Accepted Manuscript (a version of your accepted manuscript agreed between you and the publisher) in an institutional or subject repository.

Depositing your publication

If you plan, with agreement from your publisher, to comply with the policy by depositing a version of your publication in a repository, you can use:

• Open Research Online (ORO), the OU's open access research outputs repository
• an appropriate subject repository

Find available repositories using OpenDOAR

If you are depositing an Author's Accepted Manuscript, this should be marked as not the final published version, which you may also choose to link to.

Dealing with third-party copyright

UKRI provide in-depth guidance on the inclusion of third party copyright in open access research publications, including template communications and answers to questions rights holders may have. We recommend you review and follow that guidance early in the process of preparing your manuscript. You are welcome to contact us on library-research-support@open.ac.uk with any queries or concerns.

UKRI will fund up to £2,000, within the funding maximum for an output, to support costs associated with clearing permissions for third-party content to be included in the open access version of the publication (see our guidance on the UKRI Long-Form Publications Fund for more information). However, these costs should be accounted for in grant applications, where possible.

Open Access fund for monographs, book chapters and edited collections

UKRI has introduced a dedicated £3.5 million fund to support open access costs for long-form publications within the scope of this new policy. This fund is expected to open for applications from 28th November 2023 for UKRI funded monographs, book chapters or edited collections due to be published on or after 1 January 2024. Funding can be used to support costs to make Version of Record immediately open access with a Creative Commons licence. Please see the UKRI Long-Form Publications Fund page of our website for further details on this fund, and how to apply. 

The full policy with a list of frequently asked questions, and exemptions to the policy, can be found on the UKRI open access policy webpage.