Open access publishing for RCUK funded research
Any journal article, review or conference paper submitted for publication after 1 April 2013 and funded in whole or in part from Research Council funding must be made available in an open access form. This applies to both staff and postgraduate students.
You can comply:
- either by publishing your paper in an open access journal
- or publishing your paper in a journal which charges the reader for access AND depositing your final accepted manuscript (i.e. the manuscript you sent to the publisher following peer review but before copy editing and typesetting) in the Leicester Research Archive and / or in an open access subject repository. The publisher must make your article available for anyone to read online at most 12 months' after publication (or 24 months for ESRC/AHRC funded research).
Publishing in an open access journal
The contents of an open access journal can be read by anyone; a subscription is not required. Open access journals usually get their income by charging an 'article processing charge' (APC) for articles which they accept for publication.
The Research Councils have made some money available to the University to pay APCs for publishing in open access journals. This fund is administered by the Library.
For your article's APC to be paid for from the fund, it must meet the following conditions:
-
you are the corresponding author;
-
your article explicitly acknowledges Research Council support (preferably including the grant number);
-
the journal to which you intend to submit is fuly compliant with RCUK requirements
Funds are allocated on a first come, first served basis. Please apply for your APC as soon as possible so that the necessary amount can be committed for you. If there are no funds left, you can still comply with RCUK requirements by depositing the version of your paper accepted for publication in the Leicester Research Archive or another 'open access' repository.
Information on publishers who provide paid options for open access can be found at SHERPA Romeo. You can find out whether your preferred journal is compliant by checking the new SHERPA FACT database. If you are in any doubt, please contact the Leicester Research Archive team (lra@le.ac.uk) for further advice.
The application form asks for details of your paper, the open access fee, and your grant. Please note that the fund covers open access fees only: submission, page, colour or other charges are not supported and you will have to find another source for these.
We will:
- check all applications and give you a decision within two working days if your request is straightforward;
- In more complex cases where we need to contact the publisher for clarification, we will let you know why there is a delay;
- If your journal is not compliant, we will explain why and set out alternatives for you.
For collaborative papers that cross institutions, we will pay 100% of the open access fee if there is a Leicester corresponding author. Otherwise we expect the other institution to pay the charge.
If you apply to the fund at a later stage, after your paper has been accepted, we cannot guarantee to re-imburse you from the fund.
Flowchart summary
