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Papers funded in whole or in part by NIHR must meet the NIHR open access requirements. Find out how to check whether your chosen journal complies, and what funding is available.
Guidance for NIHR-funded papers submitted before 1 June 2022
The new NIHR open access policy applies to all peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews not commissioned by publishers and conference papers in a journal or proceedings with an ISSN number, arising from NIHR Programmes, NIHR Personal Awards that fund research, the NIHR Global Health Research Portfolio and NIHR Infrastructure (including research units and schools). The policy does not apply to monographs, book chapters or edited collections.
Key points:
- NIHR requires immediate open access under the CC BY licence in Europe PubMed Central upon publication.
- Journal embargoes on Green open access are not permitted.
- NIHR will fund Gold open access in fully open access journals, and in subscription (hybrid) journals that offer the CC BY licence and deposit on behalf of the author in Europe PubMed Central.
- NIHR may allow, on a case-by-case basis, the use of the more restrictive CC BY-ND licence.
- Outputs must include a data sharing statement describing how the underpinning research data can be accessed, and appropriate acknowledgement of NIHR funding.
- Reports resulting from certain NIHR research programmes must be published in NIHR’s open access journals in the NIHR Journals Library.
- Submissions to subscription (hybrid) journals must include NIHR's submission statement.
Compliant journals and proceedings
Funded authors should establish if their chosen journal is compliant before submission. Compliant types of journal are summarised in the table below, along with advice on identifying them.
| Open access option | How to check your journal |
|---|---|
| Fully OA journals or platforms (Gold open access), including NIHR Open Research. | Check DOAJ to see if the journal is fully open access. |
| Subscription/hybrid journals in transformative agreements (Gold open access). | Check if the journal is included in UCL's transformative agreements by searching for your journal in our transformative agreements journal list. Then check the publisher section on the UCL's transformative agreements page to see whether your paper is eligible. |
| Subscription/hybrid journals that offer the CC BY licence and deposit on behalf of the author in Europe PubMed Central (Gold open access). | Check the journal’s open access policy, often available on the journal’s webpages, or check Sherpa Romeo. If in doubt, check with the Open Access Team. |
| Subscription/hybrid journals that allow the final version or Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to be made open access under CC BY in a compliant repository on publication (Green open access). | Check the journal’s open access policy, often available on the journal’s webpages, or check Sherpa Romeo. If in doubt, check with the Open Access Team. Many journals do not currently allow this. If your journal is not in the categories above, you may need to follow our advice below for non-compliant journals. |
For the Gold open access options listed above, the publisher must make the final published version immediately open access under CC BY on their webpages and in Europe PMC upon publication.
For the Green open access option, the accepted manuscript must be uploaded to Europe PMC and RPS on or before the first online publication date.
Non-compliant journals
If your journal is not compliant (i.e. one that does not comply through the options in the table above), you may want to consider submitting elsewhere. Alternatively, you will need to retain the right to make your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) open access on publication under the CC BY licence. In addition to including NIHR's submission statement, NIHR authors may wish to follow the guidance for non-compliant journals on UCL's UKRI/Wellcome open access webpages.
Open access funding
- From 1 June 2022, eligible NIHR research awards will automatically include an open access funding envelope to fund Gold open access publication, including contributions to institutions' transformative agreements. If your paper has a UCL corresponding author, see UCL's transformative agreements.*
- Existing awards and applications will retain their budgeted open access costs.
- Open access funds will be available for up to two years after the end of the award.
- If the open access envelope, or budgeted open access funds, is depleted, grantholders can apply to NIHR for additional funding.
- NIHR funds may only be used to cover submission fees if they result in the open access publication of an article.
- NIHR units must budget for and earmark open access costs in their applications.
- Further information is available in NIHR's open access funding guidance.
* UCL may in future seek to claim the costs of NIHR-funded papers published through transformative agreements.