UKRI open access policy

On this page:

• Introduction
• Policy scope
• Journal articles and conference papers
  • How do I comply with the policy?
  • What license should I select for my publications?
  • Will UKRI pay for open access charges?
  • What do I do if my chosen journal is not fully open access?
  • How do I comply via Route 2?
  • How can I check which route to compliance I should take?
  • Do I need to make my research data available?
• Longform publications
  • How do I comply with the policy?
  • What license should I select for my publication?
  • Are there any exemptions to the policy?
  • Will UKRI pay for open access charges?
  • How can I comply via a repository?

Introduction

UKRI’s open access policy applies to research articles submitted on or after 1 April 2022, and to monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024.

Contact OAEnquiries@sheffield.ac.uk if you have any questions about the UKRI open access policy.

Policy scope

UKRI funded research articles (and conference papers accepted for final publication in a journal, conference proceedings with an ISSN, or publishing platform) submitted on or after 1 April 2022 must be made immediately open access with a CC BY licence. This includes review articles, including those that have been invited or commissioned.

UKRI funded monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024 must be made open access (any creative commons licence) with an embargo of 12 months or less.

Longform publications where the sole funding source is a UKRI training grant (eg PhD scholarship) are exempt from the policy. 

Journal articles and conference papers

How do I comply with the policy?

All research articles acknowledging funding from UKRI must be submitted using the following text in the funding acknowledgment section and covering letter:

“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising."

Where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government License' or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) license' may be stated instead.

You can then comply with the policy using one of two routes.

• Route 1 (gold open access): Publish open access via a journal or publishing platform that makes the Version of Record immediately available on its website.
• Route 2 (green open access): Publish behind a paywall in a subscription journal and deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript into a compliant repository. University of Sheffield researchers should deposit into WRRO via myPublications as soon as possible after article acceptance. The deposited manuscript must be made open access immediately on publication without an embargo period.

Biomedical articles acknowledging funding from BBSRC or MRC are also required to be archived in Europe PMC.

What license should I select for my publications?

In the majority of cases, the Version of Record should be published under a CC BY licence if you are using Route 1. If you are using Route 2, the CC BY licence should be applied to the Author Accepted Manuscript. 

For more information about licensing, please visit our copyright pages.

In cases where the publication is subject to Crown Copyright, an Open Government Licence can be used.

In exceptional circumstances, UKRI may give permission for a CC BY-ND licence to be used. Permission must be granted in advance of submission for publication using the No Derivatives Licence Exception Form.

Will UKRI pay for open access charges?

You will be able to have your APC paid using our UKRI block grant only if you are publishing in a fully open access journal or platform.

UKRI will no longer pay for other charges associated with publication, such as page or colour charges.

What do I do if my chosen journal is not fully open access?

You may be able to make your article open access via one of our transitional agreements. However, we recommend that you still keep hold of your Author Accepted Manuscript so you can deposit it if necessary. 

If your article is not eligible for publication under a transitional agreement, then you will need to publish behind a paywall and deposit your Author Accepted Manuscript into WRRO via myPublications on acceptance. 

Please read carefully the following advice on the steps you must take to ensure you are able to make your work immediately open access with the correct license.

How do I comply via Route 2 (making the Author Accepted Manuscript available via a repository)? 

The text that you have included in your funding acknowledgement section should allow you to deposit your Author Accepted Manuscript into a repository and make it immediately open access with no embargo and with an appropriate licence.

The licensing statement required by UKRI is as follows:

“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.”

Where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence' or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence' may be stated instead. Use this form before submission to apply to use the CC BY-ND licence.

If you forget to include the statement, it may still be possible to make the Author Accepted Manuscript compliant under the University's Research Publications and Copyright Policy. Please check with oaenquiries@sheffield.ac.uk.

How can I check which route to compliance I should take?

The main thing to check before submission is whether your chosen journal is fully open access or hybrid (you can usually see this quite easily on the journal website), as this will tell you whether you need to get in touch with us about covering the mandatory APC from the block grant. You can also consult our list of transitional agreements to see if you are eligible for one.  However, for the purposes of compliance with UKRI, we would recommend you always keep hold of the Author Accepted Manuscript so you are able to deposit it regardless of whether or not your article is eligible for an agreement.

Do I need to make my research data available?

The UKRI Research Data Policy requires that data is made as open as possible, with exceptions available for those who cannot share data for legal, ethical or commercial reasons.

Regardless of whether or not you have data, and if your data is openly available, all UKRI-funded articles need to include a data access statement. 

These should describe how to access the research materials underlying the paper, the reason for any restrictions, and explicitly state if there is no data associated with the article.

Examples of data access statements can be found on our research data management webpages. 

Long form publications (monographs, book chapters and edited collections)

How do I comply with the policy?

Monographs, book chapters and edited collections (longform publications) must be made openly available  with an embargo of 12 months or less and with a Creative Commons licence. 

This can either be the Version of Record or Author Accepted Manuscript, and can be made available on a publisher’s website, online publication platform or via an institutional repository such as WRRO.

What license should I select for my publication?

Although UKRI recommends a CC BY license, other Creative Commons licenses are also acceptable (eg CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND). 

In cases where the publication is subject to Crown Copyright, an Open Government Licence can be used.

Licensing requirements do not apply to any third party material (eg images, photographs, diagrams and maps) contained in monographs, book chapters or edited collections.

Third party material may be published under a more restrictive license, or an exception to the policy may be granted if there is no way to enable open access publication due to the use of third party material.

Are there any exemptions to the policy?

Monographs, book chapters and edited collections must be published within 7 years from the end of the acknowledged UKRI grant to be in scope of the open access policy. If the publication date is more than 7 years after the funding ends, then the publication is out of scope, and ineligible for UKRI funding.

For in-scope publications, there are other possible exemptions to this part of the policy:

1. If the only appropriate publisher for your work does not provide a compliant open access option. UKRI expects this to be rare, and only after significant consideration of options and liaison with the publisher.
2. If the sole funding acknowledgement is for a UKRI ‘training grant’ (eg PhD stipend).
3. If permissions for third party material cannot be obtained and there is no suitable alternative which enables open access publication.
4. Trade books are exempt from the policy, except in cases where they are the sole output of UKRI funded research. The classification of a book as a ‘trade book’ will be at the discretion of author and publisher.
5. If a contract has been signed between author and publisher before 1 January 2024 which prevents adherence to the policy (however, UKRI strongly encourages authors to think about open access options in advance of the policy start date).

Authors do not have to seek approval from UKRI to use an exemption, but will have to notify them when an exemption is used. Please contact oaenquiries@sheffield.ac.uk if you think your publication is exempt from the policy, and we will notify UKRI on your behalf.

Scholarly editions, exhibition catalogues, scholarly illustrated catalogues, textbooks and all types of fictional work are also exempt from the policy, but UKRI do not need to be notified about these outputs.

Will UKRI pay for open access charges?

There is a central UKRI fund to support open access charges for in-scope books and chapters. Applications to this fund must be made by the Library open access team on the researcher’s behalf.

Please fill in this form to inform us that you wish to apply for UKRI funding for your monograph, edited collection or book chapter - this should be at as early a stage of the publishing process as possible, preferably before a contract has been signed.

If we are happy that your publication is in scope of the policy, we will submit an initial  (Stage 1) application to UKRI, which is usually approved within 10 working days. We will then be able to pay the invoice once you receive it, and reclaim the money back from UKRI at a later date

Please read the following guidance before completing the form.

• the maximum amount authors will be able to claim for a single BPC is £10,000 including VAT (£8333 without VAT)
• the maximum amount for a single book chapter is £1000 including VAT (£833 without VAT)
• there is no limit to the amount of BPCs or chapter processing charges an individual author can claim for
• authors may use part of the £10,000 allowance (up to £2000) on clearing rights for third party content. However, they should note that this would reduce the amount of money left to pay a BPC. UKRI will also permit costs for rights clearance to be written into grant applications.
• UKRI will only cover charges if they provide immediate open access (so reduced BPCs for delayed open access will not be covered)
• authors solely acknowledging a 'training grant' (eg. PhD stipend) are eligible to apply to the fund if they wish to make their book or chapter open access, although they do not have to
• It is important that you ask publishers about open access early on in your conversations with them, letting them know you are UKRI funded and the details of the open access requirement. You can use and adapt this template text when emailing a publisher. 

University of Sheffield may claim back a certain amount of funding for books published under a 'diamond' model of open access (both free to read/openly licensed and free to publish) to contribute to these initiatives and make them sustainable. Please let us know at oaenquiries@sheffield.ac.uk if you are publishing under such a model.

If you are no longer affiliated to the University of Sheffield, and not based at another UK research institution, please contact UKRI directly at openresearch@ukri.org.

How can I comply via a repository?

You can comply with the UKRI open access requirement for longform publications by depositing the Author Accepted Manuscript of your book or chapter (the version post peer review but before the publisher's final version) into WRRO via myPublications and making it available within 12 months with a Creative Commons licence.

However, publisher self-archiving policies do not always allow you to share your Author Accepted Manuscript in this way. It is very unlikely to be possible for a whole monograph or edited collection, and is not always possible for a chapter. It is important that you check with your publisher whether your contract permits you to do this, and send us evidence of this permission when you deposit.