From 1 April 2022, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) open access policy has changed. In alignment with Plan S, the new open access policy requires all research articles which acknowledge UKRI funding to be:
- made freely available at the time of publication
- openly licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence*
Until 1 April 2022, researchers must continue to comply with the previous policy.
*Or by exception a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND) licence (apply directly to UKRI for approval). .
UKRI Policy on Open Access (from 1 April 2022)
From 1 April 2022 the UKRI policy on open access applies to:
- Peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference papers, that are accepted for final publication in either a journal, conference proceeding with an ISSN, or publishing platform.
- Any article required to acknowledge funding from UKRI or any of its constituent councils (including Research England and Innovate UK).
How do I comply?
UKRI describes 2 routes that are compliant with their policy.
Route 1: The published version is made immediately Open Access under a CC BY licence.
In practical terms for University of Birmingham authors, this means you can publish in:
You can find more information about following these options on our publishing open access information page.
Route 2: Publish in a subscription journal and take responsibility for self-archiving the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in a repository that makes it immediately open access under a CC BY licence.
More information about this option is available on our self-archiving page.
Data Access Statement
In addition all papers must include a Data Access statement.
UKRI continue to provide the University of Birmingham with an open access block grant. This is available to support publishing via Route 1. However:
- it can no longer be used to support publishing a hybrid journal unless that title is part of a Transitional Agreement that has been granted Transformative Journal status by UKRI/Jisc.
- it cannot be used to pay non-OA fees associated with publishing (including page and colour charges).
- it cannot be used to pay open access costs associated with monographs or chapters. Check our UKRI OA monographs policy page for the latest information about funding long form open access.
Find more information on our publishing open access information page.
MRC and BBSRC specific requirements
Papers acknowledging Medical Research Council (MRC) or Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funding must be deposited in Europe PubMed Central under a CC BY licence immediately on publication.
- If following Route 1, ensure your publisher has done this for you.
- If following Route 2, you will need to ensure you deposit the AAM yourself.
What about long-form publications?
From 1 January 2024 the policy will also apply to monographs,book chapters and edited collections, although the specific requirements do differ from the above. For long-form publications in scope of the policy, you must make the output open access within 12 months of publication and use an open licence. Monographs which are only required to acknowledge a UKRI training grant are encouraged, but not required, to follow the policy.
More information