Publishing open access on the publisher website

When you publish open access on the publisher website, your work will be freely available to be read, downloaded and reused by anybody with an internet connection, anywhere in the world. It will be published with a licence such as one of the Creative Commons licences, of which the most open is CC BY. Publishing open access is available for many different output types including journal articles and conference papers in addition to monographs, book chapters and edited collections.

Funding to publish open access articles

Many peer-reviewed open access journals listed in Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) do not charge publishing fees (filter DOAJ by "without fees"). You can publish open access without paying publishing fees in journals included in publisher Transformative Agreements when you are corresponding author, as it has already been paid for. 

If your chosen publishing venue is not covered by existing publisher agreements, you may be required to pay a fee to publish open access. Your funder may pay publishing costs through your research grant or via central funds provided to the institution. The University's central open access funds are administered by the Open Research team in the Library, in accordance with University central OA funds policy. We have four central open access funds:

• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
• Wellcome Trust
• British Heart Foundation
• Institutional open access fund

Request open access funding using the link to the right of this page, or email us.

Other publication charges

When submitting to a journal that charges page charges, colour, figure or excess length charges, it is important to determine how you will pay these before submitting. Most funders including Horizon Europe, NIHR, UKRI and the Wellcome Trust no longer pay "non-open access publication costs". We recommend seeking publishing options that do not incur additional costs such as "colour online only" free if charge, or requesting a waiver from the publisher.

Predatory publishers

Exercise caution when choosing where to submit, especially if you received an email inviting you to submit and the publisher is charging a fee to publish your work. Predatory publishers / journals are “entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices."

• Think Check Submit provides guidelines for assessing publishers
• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a database of peer-reivewed full open access journals, which have passed a series of checks for inclusion there
• Cabells predatory reports publish the Predatory Criteria, which they use to evaluate journals. These can provide some suggestions of factors to check when evaluating suspect journals and publishers.
• Contact the Open Research team or your Liaison Librarian for help evaluating publishers.