Open access

New UKRI open access policy (from 1 April 2022) 

The new UKRI policy applies to all research and review articles submitted on or after 1 April 2022 and to monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 Jan 2024. 

New policy requirements for journal articles

• UKRI-funded articles submitted on or after 1 April 2022 must be made open access immediately (either via the Green or Gold open access routes) with a CC BY licence and no embargo.
• A data access statement must be included (even when there is no underlying data or the data is restricted).

How do I comply?

Check if your chosen journal has a compliant open access route before you submit your paper. Contact the Open Access team for help checking journal compliance:

There are two routes to compliance:

Route 1: Gold open access  

• Publish open access in a journal or publishing platform which makes the Version of Record immediately open access with a CC BY licence.
• There are three compliant Gold open access routes available to LSE researchers:
  • Publish in a journal covered by one of LSE's transformative publishing agreements (List of eligible journals, LSE author MUST be the corresponding author).
  • Publish in a fully open access journal (indexed in Directory of Open Access Journals).
  • Publish in a JISC-Approved "Transformative Journal".
• See the Route 1 compliance flowchart for more information on checking journal compliance for Gold open access.

Route 2: Green open access  (if it is not possible to comply via Route 1)

• Publish the article in a subscription journal and deposit your Author’s Accepted Manuscript in LSE Research Online with a CC BY licence. A publisher embargo period is not permitted.  
• You MUST include a Rights Retention statement on the submitted manuscript in order to comply.
• See the Route 2 compliance flowchart for guidance on green open access and rights retention.

What else do I need to do?  

• Acknowledge your funding. Guidance on wording the statement.
• Include a data access statement. You must do this even if there is no underlying data or the data is not accessible. For help, see the Research Data Management web page. 
• Choose a CC BY licence. In exceptional circumstances you may be permitted to apply a more restrictive licence.
• MRC and BBSRC funded researchers must also deposit their papers in EuropePMC.

New policy requirements for monographs, chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024: 

• Either the version of record or the accepted manuscript must be open access within 12 months of first publication.  
• Creative Commons or Open Government Licence must be applied (CC BY 4.0 is preferred but other CC licences will be accepted).  
• The open access version should include, where possible, any images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content. Creative Commons licences do not need to be applied to third party copyright material. For more information see the UKRI guide on managing third-party copyright in your publications. 
• Exemptions are available for books that are under contract before 1 Jan 2024 and in a small number of other circumstances.    

How do I comply? 

• Contact the Open Access team as early as possible if you are planning to publish a book or chapter acknowledging UKRI funding.   
• You should also inform your preferred publisher as early as possible and ask if they offer a compliant route to open access. 
• Authors may be able to comply at no cost by depositing an accepted version of the manuscript in LSE Research Online (where copyright allows).  
• UKRI will provide funding to support making publications open access. When applications to the fund open (expected Autumn 2023) you will be able to apply through the LSE Open Access Team. 

The application will be a two-stage process:  

• Stage 1: notifying UKRI of the forthcoming publication and receiving assurance about eligibility for funding (this can be done before the contract is signed).  
• Stage 2: supplying evidence of open access publication to UKRI and receiving funds.

UKRI plan to release terms and conditions of the fund and guidance on applications in Autumn 2023, this page will be updated to reflect new information when it becomes available.

UKRI open access policy and FAQ   

UKRI guide on managing third-party copyright in your publications

Research articles, monographs, and associated research data, wholly or partly funded by ERC or Horizon 2020, must be made available open access within the following time frames: 

• 12 months from the date of publication (SSH subjects) 
• 6 months from the date of publication (STEM subjects and all other papers) 

How do I comply? 

• Deposit your accepted manuscript in LSE Research Online and we will make it open access in accordance with publisher permission (Green open access). 
• If the journal embargo exceeds the maximum permitted by the policy, pay an APC to publish (Gold open access). 
• If your paper is accepted in an eligible journal covered by one of our transformative publishing agreements, the paper will be published Gold open access without the payment of an APC (conditions apply). 

What else do I need to do? 

• Provide an acknowledgement of funding in the following format: "This project has received funding from the [European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme] under grant number No. [Number]."
• Deposit a copy of the article in LSE Research Online, even if the Gold route has been chosen.
• Add the paper into your final report to the European Commission 

Am I eligible for funding for Gold open access? 

• No, open access fees must be budgeted into grants as “direct eligible costs” provided they are incurred during the project. 

ERC open access policy  

Horizon 2020 open access policy 

Horizon 2020 factsheet for researcher 

Peer-reviewed research articles and monographs wholly or partly funded by Horizon Europe, must be made available open access immediately and no later than the date of publication. 

For research and review articles and conference papers: 

• Either the version of record or the author accepted manuscript must be deposited in LSE Research Online and made immediately open access.  
• No embargo will be permitted for Green open access. 
• Publication fees are only reimbursable from your Horizon Europe grant if the journal is fully open access  
• If your paper is accepted in an eligible journal covered by one of our transformative publishing agreements, the paper will be published Gold open access without the payment of an APC (conditions apply).
  
• CC-BY licence must be applied.  

For monographs, book chapters and edited collections: 

• Either the version of record or accepted manuscript must be open access immediately. 
• CC-BY licence is preferred but other CC licences accepted. 
• Costs must be budgeted into grant 
• Publication fees must be costed into your grant application. 

Research Data Management 

Grant beneficiaries must manage their research data in line with FAIR principles and do the following: 

• Write a Data Management Plan.
• Deposit the data in a trusted repository and make open access under a CC BY or equivalent licence. 
• Provide information about any research output/tools/instruments needed to reuse or validate the data. 

What else do I need to do?

• Provide an acknowledgement of funding in the following format: "This project has received funding from the [European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme] under grant number No. [Number]."
• Add the paper into your final report to the European Commission 

Am I eligible for funding for Gold open access?

• No, open access fees must be budgeted into grants as “direct eligible costs” provided they are incurred during the project.

Contact the Open Access team if you have any questions about complying with your EU funder. 

This policy applies to all peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews not commissioned by publishers and conference papers, submitted for publication on or after 1 June 2022 arising from: 

• NIHR Programmes, NIHR Personal Awards and NIHR Global Health Research Portfolio: research studies where the research costs are funded in whole or in part by the NIHR. Personal awards that do not fund research are out of scope of this policy. 
• NIHR Infrastructure (including NIHR research units and schools): research studies where the majority of the research costs are funded by the NIHR.  

Either the accepted manuscript or the final published version must be made immediately open access in Europe PMC with a CC BY 4.0 licence by the publication date (no embargo is permitted).  

Out of policy scope: Monographs, book chapters and edited collections 

How do I comply? 

If you are submitting your paper to a subscription journal, regardless of whether you are choosing Gold or Green open access, you MUST include the following statement in the funding acknowledgement section of your paper and any cover letter or note accompanying the submission (delete sections in [ ] as appropriate): 

"For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied [a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence] [an ‘Open Government Licence’] (or where permitted by the NIHR) [a Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence] to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising". 

Gold open access 

• Publish your paper gold open access at no additional cost using one of LSE’s transformative publishing agreements. Check if your journal is included in LSE's transformative publishing agreements. Either you or the publisher MUST deposit the final published version in Europe PMC no later than the final date of publication 
• When an Open Access payment is applicable, for example an APC, NIHR will pay reasonable fees required by a publisher to effect publication in line with the criteria of this policy. 
• Open Access funding requests can be made using an NIHR Open Access request form. Authors and their research organisations should read the Open Access funding guidance for information on the terms and processes for accessing Open Access funding. 
• NIHR will fund open access if the following conditions are met: 
  • CC BY 4.0 licence is chosen 
  • The journal has an agreement with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to deposit the paper in Europe PMC no later than the date of publication.

Green open access  

• The accepted manuscript must be uploaded to Europe PMC and LSE REsearch Online by the date of first online publication. 
• A CC BY 4.0 licence must be applied to be accepted manuscript (by the inclusion of the above statement on your submitted manuscript). 

• An embargo period is not permitted. 

What else do I need to do?

• Acknowledge funding: acknowledgment of NIHR, unique award identifier and disclaimer in the funding or acknowledgments section of the manuscript and included in the funding information requested by the publication on submission. Read more on how to acknowledge the NIHR in research outputs. 

• Include a data access statement: describing how the underpinning research data can be accessed. Where there are reasons to protect access to the data, for example commercial confidentiality or sensitivities around data derived from potentially identifiable human participants, these should be included in the statement. Read more about our position on the sharing of research data. 

• Choose a CC BY licence - All in-scope articles must be published under the Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY)  NIHR may permit, on a case-by-case basis, the use of a more restrictive Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives licence (CC BY-ND) for the open access version of a research article. Authors can request a CC BY-ND licence on an NIHR Open Access request form. 

Read more about NIHR’s open access policy. 

Contact the Open Access team if you have any questions.

If your research funder is not listed here, please contact the Open Access team and we will advise on how to ensure your research outputs comply with any open access requirements. 

Examples of funder policies that we can help with include: 

• Wellcome 
• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Other Plan S funders