NIHR open access policy and funding

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.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (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 (International Standard Serial 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 Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence in Europe PMC 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 PMC.
• 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 a rights retention statement.

Complying with the policy

Gold open access

1. Journals in UCL's transformative agreements are compliant. To use the agreements, the article's corresponding author must be at UCL. Proceed with submission, following the links to publisher instructions in the list of journals in UCL's agreements, and choose CC BY when accepted for publication.
2. Fully open access journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals are compliant. Some fully open access journals are included in UCL's agreements (see above). If your journal is not included in an agreement, it may be eligible for funding via UCL's Open Access Team if it also acknowledges UCL-held Wellcome Trust, UK Research Council (UKRI), CRUK and/or BHF funds. 
3. NIHR-funded research can be published in journals in the NIHR Journals Library or NIHR Open Research.

For other articles, see NIHR's open access funding guidance, summarised below.

• 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.
• 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.
• Where NIHR funds Gold open access, the journal must deposit the final published version of the article in Europe PMC.

Some fully open access journals offer a choice of open access licence. NIHR requires the CC BY licence.

Green open access

If your journal does not comply through Gold/fully open access, use rights retention. Under UCL’s updated Publications Policy, authors publishing in subscription journals outside UCL’s transformative agreements can still meet NIHR's requirements:

• Accepted manuscripts can be made open access immediately in UCL Discovery and Europe PMC, without an embargo, under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY).
• Upload the accepted manuscript to UCL’s Research Publications Service (RPS) and Europe PMC on or before publication. Set the embargo period in Europe PMC to zero, when you upload.
• Research degree students publishing without a UCL staff co-author are not currently covered by rights retention. They must include the required statement at submission, as set out in the Rights Retention Support Pages.

Contact UCL's Open Access Team for further advice.