Irrespective of funding, you are encouraged by the University to self-archive a version of each research output in Pure as soon as it is accepted for publication. For journal articles and conference papers, this remains an essential requirement for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF) or its equivalent. Your funder may also require that a copy is deposited in Europe PubMed Central.
- Check your funder policy for more information.
- Self-archiving in Pure (ensure you link each output to any grant that has supported its publication using the Projects link).
- If you are a researcher in Life and Environmental Sciences (LES), you can use our new mediated deposit service to self-archive in Pure.
A glossary of terminology is available at the end of this page.
Meeting funder open access requirements via self-archiving
If you are a funded author, you may need to comply with your funder policy regarding self-archiving.
Wellcome Trust / UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) / National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded authors
Self-archiving may be a viable route to compliance if you have worked through our ‘Publishing Open Access’ page and found that funds are unavailable to support open access of the final published version in the journal you are targeting:
We recommend you first check if the journal’s policy allows compliant OA self-deposit:
- This list (Excel - 16KB) identifies journal titles which allow the AAM to be self-archived under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) for immediate Open Access if there is no alternative route available to University of Birmingham authors to make the final published version open access. In some cases there are eligibility criteria, often related to funding acknowledged on the paper.
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If a journal you are targeting is on this list, and you meet any eligibility requirements, you should submit your paper and include the following language in the acknowledgements of the paper:
“This research was funded in whole or in part by the Funder [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.”
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Once the paper has been accepted for publication, you must deposit the AAM in Pure as soon as possible. Ensure the paper is linked to the Pure record for your grant (use the ‘Projects’ link) and add the following comment to the Pure record:
“This paper must be made immediately open access under a CC BY licence”
The library Open Access team will then prioritise the record and ensure that it is made open when the paper is published.
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If your paper acknowledges funding from Wellcome Trust, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) or Medical Research Council (MRC) you should also ensure the AAM is deposited in Europe PubMed Central.
If the journal is not on the list:
- It usually means the publisher will ask you to sign T&Cs that are incompatible with self-archiving under a CC BY licence. In these circumstances, Library Services can advise on how to contact the publisher to assess whether self-archiving in accordance with your funder's requirements is viable.
- Contact us before you submit the paper at openaccesspublications@contacts.bham.ac.uk and include details of the paper, your funder, and the journal you wish to publish in.
Cancer Research UK
As CRUK allow the block grant awarded to the University to pay article processing charges in any hybrid journal, it is not usually necessary to achieve compliance by self-archiving. If the block grant becomes exhausted, you will be advised of alternatives when you submit an APC request form.
British Heart Foundation
Where there is no option to make the VoR open access in its final published form, compliance with the BHF policy can be achieved by deposit of the AAM in Europe PubMed Central so that it is openly available within 6 months of publication. Many, but not all, publishers do permit this for BHF funded authors, but you are advised to check the journal’s self-archiving policy using the SherpaROMEO service before submitting.
If in doubt, contact us at: openaccesspublications@contacts.bham.ac.uk. You should also ensure a copy of the AAM is self-archived in Pure.
Self-archiving for unfunded authors
Self-archive the AAM for any article you have published in Pure as soon as it is accepted. The library Open Access team will ensure that it is made open access in accordance with publisher requirements.
Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)
This is the version of a paper after peer review, but before final publisher formatting and copy-editing. It may also be known as the author’s final manuscript, or post-print.
Version of Record (VoR)
This is the version of a paper that is published in the journal itself. Many publishers will publish an ‘early online’ version of the VoR on their website and then republish it with pagination once the issue of the journal it appears in is published. For the purposes of the REF and most funder policies, appearance of the ‘early online’ VoR is regarded as publication.
Green Open Access/Self-archiving
Achieving open access by depositing (self-archiving) the AAM or (where publisher allows) the VoR in a publicly accessible repository where it can at minimum be downloaded and read by anyone. Most funders allow a ‘green route’ to compliance with their OA policy, however, increasingly they will not accept this route if the AAM is embargoed or cannot be reused under the conditions of a CC BY licence.
Embargo
Some publisher T&Cs do not allow the AAM to be made open immediately on publication, but rather impose an embargo period before it can be openly shared. While the REF OA policy permitted limited embargoes which most publishers fell into line with, recent funder policies (Wellcome Trust, UKRI, CRUK, Horizon Europe) do not permit an embargo period.