After its long awaited review UKRI announced its new open access policy on the 6th August. The policy will apply to publications acknowledging UKRI funding and aims to make UKRI-funded research freely available to the public. It aligns with Plan S and the Wellcome Trust open access policy, and there is a strong indication that the policy will align with the open access requirements for the next REF (due to be published in November 2021). UKRI have pledged continued and increased funding to support the implementation of the new policy.
The policy will apply to:
- Peer-review research articles submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022
- Monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024.
Summary of changes
Articles (from 1 April 2022)
- Must be open access immediately upon publication
- CC BY licence must apply (with some permitted CC BY-ND exceptions)
- No embargoes
- APCs for OA in hybrid journals no longer permitted
- A data access statement is required (even if there is no data)
- Biomedical research articles that acknowledge MRC or BBSRC funding are required to be archived in Europe PubMed Central
Books, book chapters and edited collections (from 1 January 2024)
- Must be open access within 12 months of publication
- CC BY licence required
- Open access can be either published open access or by deposit of the Author’s Accepted Manuscript in an institutional repository
- Images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content should be included in the open access content however more restrictive licences can apply for third-party content.
The University will be providing training and guidance before April 2022 to support implementation of the policy.
You can read the full policy documents here: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/supporting-healthy-research-and-innovation-culture/open-research/open-access-policies-review/