UKRI's new Open Access Policy

The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Open Access Policy applies to all researchers whose published work results from grants received from any of the nine UKRI councils - and is based on the simple principle that findings from publicly-funded research should be accessible to all. The policy applies specifically to:

• peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews and conference proceedings, submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022
• monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024

Journal articles must be freely available worldwide at the point of publication, whether on journal websites (gold Open Access) or in CentAUR (green Open Access); embargoes are no longer permitted on versions deposited in CentAUR. Articles must be published with a CC BY licence, allowing for re-use and to aid the development of new knowledge. Authors are required to publish in compliant journals or provide the publisher with a set statement about the licence requirement. Articles must have a data access statement about underlying research data to aid transparency and reproducibility.

The inclusion of monographs, book chapters and edited collections is a very significant step toward expanding Open Access opportunities for the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences which traditionally publish in such formats. These publications must be openly available within 12 months of publication and with a Creative Commons licence. Extra funding will be made available to cover Open Access charges and UKRI is working on the funding mechanism for this in readiness for policy implementation in 2024.

This UKRI Open Access Policy builds on the ambitions of the research councils’ previous RCUK Open Access Policy which applied until March 2022. It has a target of over 90% compliance in its first year. Allowing maximum access to, and reuse of, research outputs has implications for increased collaboration and innovation which will have a positive impact on wider society and the economy. However, the new UKRI policy is not without challenges – UKRI themselves admit that the complexity of the scholarly publication system means that some of the detail is challenging.

Our University is continuously working to develop its culture of open and reproducible research in accordance with our Statement on Open Research. This policy change will increase the number of Open Access publications, the degree of Open Access i.e. re-use, visibility and citations, and accessibility of research data. For more information see our recent blog post about our commitment to Accessible research for all: what UKRI’s new Open Access policy means for us.

The Library administers the block grant from UKRI to fund article Open Access publishing costs and has signed up to a number of Jisc-negotiated Transformative Agreements (read and publish deals) with publishers. These allow authors to publish Open Access in a large number of subscription journals. Current estimates suggest that the deals and the Open Access funding available to us should cover around 80% of outputs published by Reading authors.

For help with UKRI policy requirements, understanding publisher Transformative Agreements and to access funds for Open Access publishing see the new Open Access at Reading LibGuide or book onto one of the Library’s training sessions about the policy and paying for Open Access via UoRLearn. For more information contact the Library’s Research Engagement team at oarequests@reading.ac.uk.