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Welcome Trust
Wellcome Trust Open Access policy
Journal Articles:
Articles must contain a Data Access/Availability Statement
Green or Gold is acceptable for compliance. However, please note that Wellcome will no longer fund OA publishing in hybrid titles.
Check to see if your publisher is compliant with this policy via Jisc's Open Policy Finder.
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Gold? Publishers should automatically deposit the published version into PubMed Central immediately on publication. Gold papers should be published under a CC-BY licence. APC funding for fully open access journals is available via Wellcome Trust - email the following details to: openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk:
- your current employing institution
- title of the paper
- Wellcome grant reference number
- journal title
- proposed date of publication
- cost of the open access fee.
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Green? The author should deposit the accepted manuscript into Europe PMC immediately upon publication, i.e. without embargo. To ensure compliance with this policy, you must apply a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) public copyright licence to all Author Accepted Manuscripts. The text required for manuscript submission can be found in the Wellcome Trust's guidance: 'Complying with our Open Access policy'
Books/monographs:
The Wellcome Trust's open access policy also applies to monographs. Email openresearch@plymouth.ac.uk with any queries.
Wellcome Trust & Plan S
With effect from 1st January 2021, the following changes have been made to the previous Wellcome Trust Open Access policy, in accordance with Plan S guidelines (see the updated Open Access policy):
What has changed?
| New OA policy | Previous OA policy |
|---|---|
| No embargoes accepted | Previously accommodated a 6 month embargo |
| All research articles (green or gold) must be openly licenced | Previously this was only applied to Gold articles |
| Wellcome will no longer fund APC (gold) payments in Hybrid journals | No equivalent grant condition |
| New grant condition added such that all grantholders automatically grant a CC BY public copyright licence to all their future Author Accepted Manuscripts | No equivalent grant condition |
APC funding for fully open access journals is available via Wellcome Trust - email the following details to: openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk:
- your current employing institution
- title of the paper
- Wellcome grant reference number
- journal title
- proposed date of publication
- cost of the open access fee.
All University of Plymouth affiliated corresponding authors, including those funded by Horizon 2020, can also take advantage of the University's transformative agreements to publish with gold open access. See our guidance on Read & Publish Agreements for a full list of included publishers.
NIHR
NIHR-funded research submitted for publication from 1 June 2022 is subject to the following open access policy:
- Applies to all peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews not commissioned by publishers and conference papers, submitted for publication on or after 1 June 2022
- The most up to date Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript of in-scope articles must be made freely available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final publication date, without any embargo period.
- All in-scope articles must be published under the Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY), or Open Government Licence (OGL) when subject to Crown Copyright. NIHR may permit, on a case-by-case basis, the use of a more restrictive Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives licence (CC BY-ND); authors should fill out the NIHR Open Access request form to request this.
- Authors to notify subscription journals at the point of submission of their licencing requirements to any resulting author’s accepted manuscript. (This aligns with the Plan S 'Rights Retention Strategy' - see our Plan S overview for more information.)
- "For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied [a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence] [an ‘Open Government Licence’] (or where permitted by the NIHR) [a Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence] to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising".
Funding for Open Access NIHR publications
From 1 June 2022 eligible NIHR research award contracts will have an Open Access funding envelope allocated to them, on top of the approved cost of the award, which is ring-fenced for Open Access costs. See the NIHR Open Access publications funding guidance for more details.
Previous NIHR OA policy - for articles submitted before 1 June 2022
NIHR's current open access policy applies to all articles submitted after 1 June 2022, superseding the the NIHR open access policy introduced in 2014. The differences between the two policies are detailed below.
NIHR have also amended the method by which authors can request APC funding. For grants awarded before 1 June 2022, it is expected that award holders will make provision from their funding award to cover the costs of publishing in an open access journal. For grants awarded after 1 June, the 'open access envelope' applies.
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New OA policy |
Previous OA policy |
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Please note that the University does not have any central funding for APC payments for NIHR funded authors. From 1 June 2022 eligible NIHR research award contracts will have an Open Access funding envelope allocated to them, on top of the approved cost of the award, which is ring-fenced for Open Access costs. See the NIHR Open Access publications funding guidance for more details.
For grants awarded before 1 June 2022, it is expected that award holders will make provision from their funding award to cover the costs of publishing in an open access journal. For grants awarded after 1 June, the 'open access envelope' applies.
All University of Plymouth affiliated corresponding authors, including those funded by Horizon 2020, can also take advantage of the University's transformative agreements to publish with gold open access. See our guidance on Read & Publish Agreements for a full list of included publishers.
EU (Horizon 2020)
“All H2020 projects must provide open access to all peer-reviewed scientific publications that stem from project activities, immediately or otherwise within 6/12 months of publication where publisher embargoes apply.”
The European Commission's "Guidelines to the Rules on Open Access" (2017) for Horizon 2020-funded projects do not express a preference for for gold or green as a means of complying with this obligation and compliance can be achieved via the Green route by depositing Author Accepted Manuscripts to Pearl via Pure. (If actioned within 90 days of acceptance, this deposit also meets the university's own OA policy and the REF policy).
Publisher embargoes:
Most publishers specify a longer embargo period for green open access than the EU will tolerate. If you publisher's embargo period exceeds 6/12 months then you are required to inform the publisher of your funder's requirement and ask for an exception to these restrictions. The EU have a template (addendum to the copyright transfer agreement) here.
- JISC's Open Policy Finder tool (How to identify the embargo period for your journal)
Further guidance:
Jisc have published summary of Open Access Requirements for Horizon 2020-Funded Projects (April 2019). Please note, some projects may be required to deposit data at the end of the project and the JISC guidance explores this further.
Horizon Europe & Plan S
The European Commission supports Plan S and is a participant in cOAlition S. Plan S will not change anything for researchers funded under Horizon 2020, who will still be allowed a 6/12 month embargo dependent on their discipline.
However, researchers funded by the EU’s 2021-27 R&D programme Horizon Europe will need to comply with Plan S, which means they will need to make research outputs resulting from this funding open immediately upon publication, under a CC-BY license, via either the Gold or Green routes.
On the 25th of February 2021, the European Commission published a draft model grant agreement for Horizon Europe. This is not the final version, but it outlines a zero-embargo open access policy in line with Plan S as well as updated policies on research data management (pp.107-9).
The H2020 policy states, "In the case of Article Processing Charges (APCs), you are eligible for reimbursement during the duration of the project. But you should include costs for open access publishing in the budget of your project proposal." Find out more here.
All University of Plymouth affiliated corresponding authors, including those funded by Horizon 2020, can also take advantage of the University's transformative agreements to publish with gold open access. See our guidance on Read & Publish Agreements for a full list of included publishers.