Open Access Policies

To comply with the policy research articles must be made available Open Access immediately on publication. The Version of Record (published version) must be made available by the official publication date.

The Version of Record must have a CC-BY or Open Government Licence. A CC-BY-ND licence may be permitted, approval must be sought from UKRI. Licensing requirements do not apply to any third-party copyright material included.

UKRI encourage researchers to utilise institutional read and publish deals available to them (see details of LJMU agreements). Where an institutional deal is not available you may apply for Block Grant funding. This is funding made available by UKRI to enable open access publishing of UKRI publications. Page charges and colour charges will not be funded.

UKRI block grants cannot always be used to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs) for articles published in hybrid journals, please check with Library Services prior to submission.

Publications acknowledging BBSRC or MRC funding must be made available in EMPC by the official publication date.

The Author Accepted Manuscript must be made available in a subject or institutional repository within one month of publication. Please contact us when you have deposited a UKRI paper to the repository so we can ensure all compliance steps are adhered to.

The Author Accepted Manuscript must have a CC-BY or Open Government Licence. A CC-BY-ND licence may be permitted, approval must be sought from UKRI. Licensing requirements do not apply to any third-party copyright material included.

Where a CC-BY licence will be added to an Author Accepted Manuscript the following text must be included at the point of submission.

‘For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’

Publications acknowledging BBSRC or MRC funding must be made available in EMPC by the official publication date.

Data Access Statement

You must include a short statement to detail how data can be accessed. See University of Manchester for examples.

UKRI acknowledgement

UKRI acknowledgement: UKRI guidance

ORCiD

Sign up for ORCiD and link it to your Symplectic profile. Full details and support are available for using ORCiD.

• Open access within a maximum 12 months of publication, publisher website or repository.
• Open access version should include any images, illustrations, tables and supporting content.
• Open access version must include a CC-By license or other permitted licence. Licensing requirements do not apply to any third-party copyright material included.

To request an APC payment, please email the Library Researcher Engagement Team before submitting your paper. Please include the following details in your email:

• Title of journal or conference proceedings
• Full article title
• Details of which strand of UKRI support the project from which the output arose: AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC or STFC
• The appropriate finance (“R”) cost-centre code(s) of the support project

These details will be checked, and you will be informed via email of the outcome of your request.

Payment of APC depends on degree to which your publishing outlet complies with you UKRI Open Access requirements and the availability of APC funds within the University.

To comply with the new policy research articles must be made available Open Access immediately on publication. The Version of Record (published version) or Author Accepted Manuscript must be made available in PMC or EPMC by the official publication date.

For research undertaken within the Global Heath Research Portfolio, NIHR encourage the use of EMPC, but recognise that other repositories may be more appropriate.

NIHR encourage researchers to utilise institutional read and publish deals available to them (see details of LJMU agreements). Where Article Processing Charges are not covered locally you may be able to requests additional funds from NIHR.

NIHR will consider funding requests from contracts budgeted on the previous OA policy and where the journal is fully open access or has Jisc transitional agreement status. Page charges and colour charges will not be funded.

Please note
Library Services can provide advice on this, get in touch with us when you are ready to publish.

Peer reviewed articles which acknowledge NIHR as a minority funder are out of scope, but must acknowledge NIHR and must be deposited to EMPC as soon as possible, but no later than 12 months after publication.

The Version of Record or Author Accepted Manuscript should have a CC-BY or Open Government Licence. A CC-BY-ND licence may be permitted, approval must be sought from NIHR. Licensing requirements do not apply to any third-party copyright material included.

You must include a short statement to detail how data can be accessed. See University of Manchester for examples.

NIHR acknowledgement: NIHR guidance

From June eligible awards will have an OA funding envelope allocated to them unless costs already included in budget. This funding is ringfenced for OA costs. The envelope will be calculated using a standardised approach looking at size of award and historic publishing pattern. OA funds will remain available for up to 2 years after contract completion date. Restrictions on what funds can be spent on apply, please seek advice from Library Services when considering where to publish.

In order to be eligible for inclusion in the next REF, your final/accepted manuscript for journal articles and ISSN conference proceedings must be made available openly in an institutional repository or a subject repository, respecting embargo periods. Deposits that are closed (due to embargo) must have discoverable bibliographic records.

Eligibility requires that a deposit is made as soon as possible after the point of acceptance (not publication) and no later than three months after this date. This should be the “final author version”.

In terms of access, items without an embargo should be made available as soon as possible (and no later than one month) after deposit and with an embargo no later than one month after the embargo ends. Embargo periods should not exceed 12 months for REF main panels A and B.  Embargo periods should not exceed 24 months for REF main panels C and D. 

In terms of licensing, no particular licence is mandated, but REF guidelines advise that outputs licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND would meet the access requirements. Due diligence is needed when publishing and selecting licenses in order to remain compliant with REF guidelines.

If you have any queries regarding the OA policy or if you need further information about the REF, please contact us