The only dedicated funds for APCs at Ulster is in the form of the UKRI block grant, there is no central provision for APCs other than for articles from UKRI funding. However, there are two additional options to explore for funding the cost of OA publishing: accessing one of Ulster's Read & Publishers agreements and obtaining costs from Research Funders.
Block Grant for UKRI-funded research articles
Ulster University receives a Block Grant from UKRI to help fund costs of compliance with their open access policy: our current allocation is not sufficient to cover all requests for APCs. This fund pays for articles that are funder-compliant, i.e. have a CC BY licence (also known as an attribution licence) and can be made available immediately online and deposited in other repositories. Authors must include funding information in the acknowledgement section of the paper. If you have a grant from one of the UKRI research councils and are interested in applying to this fund, please contact the Library open access team at open.access@library.ulster.ac.uk.
UKRI open access fund for monographs, book chapters and edited collections
From 28th November 2023, £3.5 million per annum will be dedicated to supporting open access for longform outputs published from UKRI funded research awards. This fund is only for longform publications that are in-scope of the open access policy.
UKRI funds institutions, therefore the research organisation must make the application to UKRI.
The fund will support a variety of open access publishing models, such as:
- book processing charges (BPCs)
- chapter processing charges (CPCs)
- diamond models / subscribe to open models (where there isn’t a pay-per-output model).
Funding applications will be in two stages. At stage 1 the research organisation registers the output(s) with UKRI for funding. At Stage 2 the research organisation provides final confirmation of publication to allow UKRI to release funds.
For more information on how Ulster researchers can apply to the fund and for a series of frequently asked questions, read Apply to the UKRI fund for longform publications.
Read and Publish Agreements
Read and Publish Agreements are also know as 'Transitional Agreements' or 'Transformative Agreements'. Read and publish (R&P) agreements seek to transition spend from paying for paywalled/subscription access to pay for reading and open access publishing services.
Ulster has a series of Read and Publish Agreements, which depending on the publisher, allow either unlimited open access or they have a capped number of articles. The Read and Publish agreements are blanket deals with academic publishers and gaining access to these agreements is not restricted to specific funding bodies. They allow Ulster authors to publish open access at no additional cost or at reduced price. To be eligible, the corresponding author of the submitted article must be based at an institution within the transitional agreement.
Check the Library webpage Open Access: Publisher Agreements for a list of Publisher Agreements, details of specific journals and instructions on these agreements. All queries on Read and Publish agreements should be sent to the library open-access mailbox: Library-OpenAccess@ulster.ac.uk.
In addition, JISC offer a Transitional Agreement (TA) Look-Up tool and this service provides information on Transitional Agreements (i.e. Read and Publish Agreements) held by institutions, and the journals listed within Transitional Agreements.
Research Funders' Support for APCs
Most research funding organizations have adopted policies that make open access mandatory for grantees (see also Plan S). A number of these funders allow OA publication costs (i.e. APCs) to be applied for on grants, so authors should have a plan for where and when to publish and include costs at the application stage.
Some of Ulster’s funders that allow APCs as permissible costs are given in the table below. UKRI funders are not included as given the UKRI Block Grant to the university, APCs are not permissible costs to UKRI funders.
For a funder not listed, check Jisc's open policy finder for information. Jisc's open policy finder includes a searchable database of research funders who have registered open access requirements. The record will provide a summary of your funders' policy with links to further information online. Please note that if a funding body does not have any requirements registered with SHERPA no result will be shown. If no results are found try your funder's website.
| Funder | Open Access Publishing Support |
|---|---|
Alzheimer’s Research UK | Alzheimer’s Research UK is committed to cover the costs of APCs up to a maximum of £2,000 per research article and will consider it when these are included in the proposed budget of an application for funding. Alzheimer’s Research UK Open Access and Data Sharing Statement and Guidance |
European Commission Horizon 2020 | APCs are eligible for reimbursement during the duration of the project (as other costs defined in Article 6.2.D.3 of the Model Grant Agreement). As stated, the article must also be made accessible through a repository upon publication. The costs of 'gold' open access publications incurred once a project is completed cannot be refunded from that project's budget. |
Fight for Sight | The Research strategy states that the fund ‘covers direct costs of the research including dissemination costs (e.g. open access charges)’. Read more on the Fight for Sight website |
Leverhulme Trust | Open Access Publishing is a permissible cost and should be included either within the 25% associated costs allowable on Research Project Grants and Research Programme Grants or within the research expenses category for fellowships. However, open access charges should only be incurred during the period of a Leverhulme award (rather than being built into a budget but with anticipated expenditure after the research and award has concluded). Read more on the Leverhulme Trust website |
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) | It is expected that award holders will make provision from their funding award to cover the costs of publishing in an open access journal. Read more on the NIHR website |
Wellcome Trust | Wellcome-funded researchers can access funds to cover open access publishing costs for research papers. Read more on the Wellcome Trust website |