UKRI award holders should be aware of new open access requirements for research articles, reviews and conference proceedings, submitted from 1 April 2022.

The major changes to the policy are:

  • Research articles, reviews and conference proceedings must be open access immediately upon publication with a CC-BY licence. This can be achieved by paying for immediate open access to the published version or by depositing the accepted manuscript in a repository;
  • If taking the repository route, authors should include a standard declaration of their intention to make the accepted version open access at the point of submission;
  • The Library will no longer be able to pay open access fees for hybrid journals (those with both a paid and free route to open access), and will no longer be able pay page or colour charges, from the UKRI open access block grant;
  • Biomedical articles funded by MRC and BBSRC must continue to be deposited in Europe Pubmed Central;
  • Research articles, reviews and conference proceedings must include a research data access statements.
  • Pre-prints are out of scope of the policy, but UKRI encourages use of pre-prints and reserves the right to ensure use of pre-prints in the context of emergencies.

What do authors acknowledging UKRI awards need to do?

If you are preparing an article for submission from 1 April 2022, you should plan to comply with the new policy. If you’re not sure whether your chosen journal(s) will allow you to comply with the policy, you can contact research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk with the journal name and details of the awards and/or studentships you will acknowledge in the paper.

If taking the repository route, authors must include a statement in the acknowledgement section indicating that they intend to make the accepted text open access with a CC-BY licence. If you think you may require a more restrictive licence, you can contact research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk to discuss your case.

Upon acceptance of a publication, you should notify research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk. If possible, please include a copy of the accepted manuscript including the acknowledgement of funding and a copy of the email from the journal confirming acceptance. We will then be able to advise on the best route to compliant open access.

Support from the Library

More information on the policy and how the Library supports open access can be found on the Library’s Open Access pages.

The Library is offering advice sessions on the new policy on the following dates:

The Research Information Management team are happy to organise local advice sessions on the new policy or on open access more generally. Please contact research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk for more information.

First published: 28 January 2022

<< 31 January 2022