New! Open Access Requirements for UKRI Funded Longform Publications
From 1st January 2024 the UKRI open access policy will apply to long-form publications. Monographs, edited collections, and book chapters published from 1st January 2024 are required to be open access under a Creative Commons licence no later than 12 months after publication.
This is the first time that monographs have been included in the UKRI open access policy but the open access requirements for peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings haven’t changed. These outputs must be made open access immediately on publication under a CC BY licence. This can either be achieved by publishing the final version on a publisher website or platform or by depositing the accepted manuscript in an institutional or subject repository.
Open access for monographs is less mature than for articles and the requirements will be more flexible to reflect this. The final Version of Record or the Author’s Accepted Manuscript must be free to view and download via an online publication platform, publishers’ website, or institutional or subject repository within a maximum of 12 months of publication. The CC BY licence is preferred but any of the Creative Commons licences are permitted.
UKRI have dedicated around £3.5 million a year to support publication costs where the output is published immediate open access. Applications for funding must be submitted via your institution through a two-stage process.
Before an application for funding can be submitted researchers must ensure their chosen publisher meets the UKRI open access requirements. The Open Research Team can advise on open access publishers and different options.
Some exemptions will be permitted. Any exemption must be agreed with the Open Research Team and will be reported to UKRI.
For example,
· Where a contract was signed prior to 1st January 2024 and doesn’t allow adherence to the open access policy (includes deposit in a repository)
· Where the only appropriate publisher, after liaison and consideration, is unable to offer a compliant open access option.
· If the grant expired 7 or more years prior to publication open access will not be required and funding will not be made available (unless extenuating circumstances).
· The output is the result of a UKRI training grant and this is the only UKRI funding acknowledged (although open access is encouraged)
· The output relies on 3rd party material to make sense and an open access licence could not be obtained for re-use. To apply for funding UoA researchers should contact the Open Research Team with the following information for Stage 1:
· name of research organisation
· UKRI funding reference
· author name(s)
· title of publication
· name of publisher
· estimated cost (if known)
· statement about relationship of the output to the UKRI funded project or grant, including the author’s role
Stage 2: The author will liaise with the Open Research Team to publish the output. The institution supplies proof of publication to UKRI to be reimbursed for publication costs. Read the UKRI Open Access Policy and supporting information. If you are planning to publish a long-form output that acknowledges UKRI funding on or after 1st January 2024 please contact the Open Research Team as early as possible to ensure that the open access requirements are met.
The Open Research webpages are regularly updated to reflect the most recent information.
