The Chief Scientist Office (CSO) open access policy and Standard Conditions of Grant (for project and all personal awards) requires researchers to make the papers published as a result of CSO funded research publicly available open access.
The policy applies to all peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews not commissioned by publishers, submitted for publication on or after 1 June 2022 than arise from CSO grants and CSO fellowships.
Any CSO funded research must also be made freely accessible via PMC and Europe PMC.
How do I comply?
You must make your work open access via publishing open access in a journal or publishing platform or self-archiving a version of the work (green open access).
Publishing open access in a journal or publishing platform (gold open access)
Check the publishing open access information page to find out if you are eligible to publish OA in a journal or publishing platform (gold OA), and to make an application for funding.
If the chosen journal is not part of an institutional publisher agreement, you can apply to CSO to cover the costs of 'gold' open access publishing of a paper arising from CSO funded research project.
- Articles must be immediately, freely and openly accessible to all.
- The most up-to-date Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript of in-scope articles must be made freely available through Europe PMC by the official final publication date, without any embargo period.
- CSO will pay open access fees such as an article processing charge (APC) required by a publisher for articles that stem from a CSO award. This funding is provided on the basis that the publisher makes the Version of Record freely available on the publishing journal platform at the time of publication AND deposits the Version of Record in PMC to allow that content to be shared with Europe PMC also at the time of publication.
- These requirements should not prevent researchers from also depositing a copy in their institutional or another subject based repository. Peer reviewed articles from CSO grants and Fellowships must give appropriate acknowledgement of CSO using the unique award identifier in the funding or acknowledgement section of the manuscript.
- All articles that acknowledge CSO as a funder should be published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) licence to ensure maximum impact. This permits all users of CSO-funded articles to disseminate and build upon the material for any purpose without further permission or fees being required.
- Funding will be limited to £8,000 per standard CSO committee grant or Fellowship and must be applied for within 18 months of financial reconciliation of the grant. If CSO is not the only funder acknowledged on the paper then the PI must confirm they are the majority funder or explain why the application for funds is being sent to CSO.
- Any exceptions to the CC BY licence must be applied for in advance with justifications.
On publication, you are also encouraged by the University to deposit a copy of the final PDF of your 'gold' OA publication into University of Birmingham Research Archive (UBIRA), using PURE.
Self-archiving (green open access)
CSO permits self-archiving (green open access). Please note publisher embargoes are no longer permitted as 1 June 2022.
Use Sherpa Romeo to check your publishers’ policy is compatible with your funders self-archiving policy.
To self-archive, deposit the Accepted Author Manuscript (AAM) of your publication using Pure immediately on acceptance. Ensure your publication is linked to the grant using the ‘Projects’ link in PURE.
- The accepted version is also known as the authors final manuscript, or post print.
- It is the version after peer review and before final publisher formatting or copy-editing.
Ensure that you or your publisher has deposited to Europe PMC so it is freely available immediately on publication. If your publisher is uncompliant with 'green' OA, you will need to choose the 'gold' OA route.
If neither the 'green' nor 'gold' route is compliant you will need to contact your funder for further guidance and you may need to publish elsewhere.
More information