In April 2023, the Library was awarded a small grant after applying to the QR Enhancing Research Culture (ERC) Project fund. This project application aimed to address a gap in University support for open access publishing. The funds requested were used to pay article processing charges (APCs) for papers published in fully open access journals. Relevant articles were either the outcome of non-funded research activity (i.e. research that has not been funded through research council, industry or charity funding assigned to a specific project) or those that did not receive financial support for open access publishing from their associated funder (e.g. where there is no dedicated policy or funds for publishing open access). The aim was to remove a financial barrier to publishing research, giving authors more choice in where to publish their work while retaining their copyright.
Open publishing of research outputs increases visibility and accessibility of the research, which in turn can foster wider collaboration as more researchers are able to connect with each other’s work. Additionally, the wider public also gains access to the work, which is particularly significant for publicly funded activity. This forms part of the University’s approach to Open Research, encouraging researchers to incorporate open research practices into their work to make their processes and outputs more transparent and reproducible where possible. Open Research is a Top Priority Project in Newcastle’s Research Culture Programme and you can find out more about the broader open research activities by visiting the Library’s Open Research pages.
Currently, Newcastle University supports the publication of open access research by covering publishing costs through several publisher agreements and block grant funding received from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the British Heart Foundation (BHF) (specifically for papers acknowledging these funders). Other funders, such as National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), allow open access costs to be charged direct to the grant or by applying to the funder for associated costs. The Newcastle University Research Publications and Copyright Policy also enables immediate, at no cost, open access of the author accepted manuscript (the version post peer-review but before final publication) for articles published in hybrid (subscription) journals, where readers pay a fee to view the non-open access published content. However, publishing for non-funded research in fully open access journals currently sits outside of these routes. Non-funded research makes up a relatively small portion of our publications, however, periodically the Open Access team within Library Research Services are approached by authors in need of such provision. After consultation with authors that the team have previously been unable to assist, we proposed the pilot scheme to trial a possible solution to this publishing barrier.
The Open Access Funding for Non-funded Research (Pilot) went live in April 2023 and was advertised University wide. Applications were received from across all faculties and reviewed by faculty representatives, with subsequent publication payments organised by the Library. Applications closed in June 2023, which was earlier than expected as ERC project funds were rapidly allocated. In the 3-month application period, the Library received 14 applications (Table 1), 10 of which were eligible for funding, with 9 being accepted. Applications not approved for this scheme were eligible for open access publication via publisher agreements, block grants or faculty funding. All 9 accepted articles were peer-reviewed, and published, in a range of journals from BMJ, Elsevier, JMIR, MDPI, Society of Neuroscience and Springer Nature (see the list at the end).
| Applications | Total | By Faculty | ||
| Medical Science | Humanities and Social Sciences | Science, Agriculture & Engineering | ||
| Number of applications | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| Applications awarded open access funding | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 |
The pilot scheme was successful in demonstrating the need for financial support for some open access publications as these publications may not have been possible in the chosen journals without such provision. Feedback on the scheme (received July 2024) from the successful applicants to the fund was positive, see what they had to say below.
Open Access funding recipient 1:
“The OA process was extremely straight forward with timely communication and information to provide was not too onerous.
The funding allowed us to publish in a highly relevant Open journal in very good time from conducting the work. We have had much correspondence about our article since and shared this internationally. Our work is in medical education research and as such we don’t often have large pots of money that we can use to allow us to publish OA so this fund was crucial to us being able to do that.
I envisage a great need for this funding and if a similar fund was continued that would be highly important to driving our publication presence forward particularly in areas of education and also public/patient/community involvement in research where OA is essential.”
Open Access funding recipient 2:
“The funding and the way it was managed was very helpful and meant we were able to publish in a high profile journal […].
I know a few people in my networks have let me know they read it partly because it was in that particular journal and downloaded the open source data attached to it so far, and again because of the journal being known, it was identified and quoted in [an] online news site […].
Overall I’d say being able to publish it using the open access fund has increased its impact and been very positive! It would certainly be very useful for future publications too.”
Open Access funding recipient 3:
“Open Access funding enabled me to publish my study in a good quality journal. Since it is fully open access, I have got reasonable number of citations within the first year after publication. My study is being recognised by many researchers all around the world and they even contribute to their own research. I would not have done it without the support of this fund by the University. I appreciate this support and want this chance to continue in the future because it is really important for a researcher that their research reaches out to everyone without any restriction.”
In 2018 an Open Access publishing initiative ‘Plan S’ was launched, supported by an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations (cOAlition S). According to the Plan S principles of transformative arrangements (TAs) “all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo”. With hybrid titles moving to fully open access, the removal of financial support for TAs from 2025 and uncertainties in funding in general, we predict that interest in a central fund to support the publication of non-funded research will continue.
One learning outcome from the scheme was the acknowledgement that the QR ERC Project fund is not appropriate for this type of support due to the nature of publications. The time lag between paper acceptance, publication and invoicing can vary massively (the average time from OA funding application to publication invoice for the pilot project was 107 days) and, in many cases, does not fit within the financial time restrictions of this annual funding. The Library continues to review how we can financially support our non-funded authors, in conjunction with all authors, to be able to publish in their journals of choice and share our research more widely.
| Al-Aali et al. 2023 Radix-2^2 algorithm for odd new Mersenne number transform (ONMNT) MDPI Engineering 4 746 https://doi.org/10.3390/signals4040041 |
| Benthem de Grave et al. 2023 Smartphone apps for food purchase choices: scoping review of designs, opportunities, and challenges Journal of Medical Internet Research 26 e45904 https://doi.org/10.2196/45904 |
| Brown et al. 2023 Genetic analysis of blood molecular phenotypes reveals common properties in the regulatory networks affecting complex traits Nature Communications 14 5062 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40569-3 |
| Cayci et al. 2023 Practices and perceptions of community pharmacists in the management of atopic dermatitis: systematic review and thematic synthesis MDPI Healthcare 11 2159 https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11152159 |
| Germann & Baker 2023 Testing a novel wearable device for motor recovery of the elbow extensor triceps brachii in chronic spinal cord injury eNeuro 10 ENEURO.0077-23.2023 https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0077-23.2023 |
| Law et al. 2024 The development and productivity of a measure for identifying low language abilities in children aged 24–36 months BMC Pediatrics 23 495 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-023-04079-x |
| Rayne et al. 2023 Detecting desertification in the ancient oases of southern Morocco Scientific Reports 13 19424 https://doi.org/10.1038/S41598-023-46319-1 |
| Tullo et al. 2023 Lost in translation: how can education about dementia be effectively integrated into medical school contexts? A realist synthesis BMJ Open 13 e077028 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2023-077028 |
| Yadav et al. 2023 Effective battery charging system using step voltage and step duty sizebased MPPT controller for solar PV system Energy Reports 10 744 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2023.07.033 |