Context
UKRI published its new Open Access Policy for research articles and academic books in August 2021. The policy aims to make published outputs of UKRI-funded research widely and freely accessible, under conditions that allow maximum reuse.
The policy seeks to align open access policy across UKRI, including the seven Research Councils, Research England and Innovate UK. It will also help inform OA policy for the post-2021 Research Excellence Framework.
Summary of changes
UKRI's Open Access Policy applies to:
- Peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers, that are accepted for final publication in either a journal, conference proceeding with an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), or publishing platform (e.g. F1000Research) submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022
- Monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024
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The new requirements on articles: Open Access immediately upon publication and more
- Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM) must be freely available to view and download in an institutional or subject repository at the time of final publication.
- A publisher-requested delay or ‘embargo period’ between publication of the Version of Record and open access of the deposited version is not permitted.
- AAM must have a CC BY licence applied (with some permitted exceptions for use of CC BY ND).
- UKRI will not fund open access for outputs in subscription (hybrid) journals except through transformative agreements.
- A Data Access Statement is mandatory, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.
- MRC and BBSRC biomedical research articles that acknowledge UKRI funding must be archived in Europe PubMed Central.
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The new requirements on books and book chapters: Open Access within 12 months of publication
- Either published as an OA item or by deposit of Author Accepted Manuscript within a maximum of 12 months of publication.
- A Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence is preferred but other CC licences are permitted.
- Books may include third-party materials (such as images, photographs, diagrams or maps) which are subject to a more restrictive licence.
- UKRI recognises there may be rare instances where meeting open access requirements for long-form publications may not be possible. Therefore, the following exemptions may apply:
- where a contract has been signed between an author and publisher before 1st January 2024 that prevents adherence to the policy.
- where the only appropriate publisher, after liaison and consideration, is unable to offer an open access option that complies with UKRI’s policy.
- where a monograph, book chapter or edited collection is the outcome of a UKRI Training Grant. Where possible, UKRI expects Research Organisations to support researchers to make such outputs open access; however, it recognises that publication may occur sometime beyond the lifetime of a training grant.
