What do I need to do?

Upon submission

1. Check whether your chosen publication venue is compliant with the open access (OA) requirements of your research funder. UKRI, Wellcome funded researchers check compliance using Journal Checker Tool; NIHR funded researchers use SHERPA/FACT.
2. If submitting to a full OA venue, identify how you will pay any publishing fees before submitting. 
3. Contact Open Research upon submission to apply for funding to publish in a full OA venue.
4. Check if your publication venue charges page, colour, figure or excess length charges. Many funders will not pay these, so consider opting for colour "online only" free of charge, or requesting a fee waiver.
5. If you're planning to publish open access in a journal included in a Transformative Agreement that we have signed up to, are you the primary / submitting / responsible corresponding author?
6. If possible, use your institutional email address on the publisher forms, this helps the publisher verify your affiliation so they can offer you relevant publishing options, it helps the Open Research team verify your affiliation when we are asked to approve an OA publication request.
7. List your funding on the publisher forms, to help them offer you compliant publishing options.
8. Acknowledge funding in your publication, including grant references.
9. Check if your funder requires you to include a set statement in your submission applying a CC BY to any future author accepted manuscript e.g. this is required for articles funded Wellcome Trust, UKRI and NIHR.
10. Include a data access statement.
11. Use your ORCiD ID.

Upon acceptance

1. Upload your  accepted manuscript version upon (within three months of) acceptance via Symplectic to ORE to comply with University policy and REF open access policy. If you publish open access with a CC BY licence, you may wait and upload the final published PDF, as soon as possible after publication.
2. If the journal included in a Transformative Agreement and you are the primary / submitting / responsible corresponding author, you may be eligible to publish open access without fees. Request open access in the publisher systems and select a Creative Commons licence; we will be notified to approve your request.
3. Check your funder requirements and make sure you do not sign any publishing contract that conflicts with these e.g. by imposing an embargo on your accepted manuscript when your funder requires it to be immediately OA.
4. Contact Open Research to discuss your options in a hybrid journal; we can check how to comply with your funder.
5. If you publish OA, select a licence. To make your work as open access posslible, we recommend Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY; this licence is required by UKRI, Wellcome Trust, NIHR, Horizon Europe. More restrictive licences are also available (additional letters after CC BY place additional restrictions on reuse), this webpage can help you decide.
6. If funded by a PubMed Central (PMC) funder, ensure a copy is deposited in PMC. If you publish OA, often the publisher will deposit for you; if they do not, upload in Europe PMC Plus.
7. Wellcome Trust funded monographs and book chapters must be uploaded to PubMed Bookshelf.

Upon publication

1. Promote your work using social media. If you published open access you can share a link to the final published version on the publisher website, confident that anybody that wishes to read and reuse your work can do so, without having to log in or pay. If you did not publish open access, you may wish to share a link to the copy you uploaded to ORE.
2. If you chose not to publish open access, your accepted manuscript in ORE may not be immediately open access there - it may be under a publisher-imposed embargo. Whilst it's under embargo, others can request to read your work using the "request a copy" function. Consider giving "blanket permissions" that allow us to share a copy every time it's requested without checking with you each time.

The University of Exeter open access policy applies to all research conducted at the University.

Please vist the University open access policies page for further details.

The REF open access policy applies to journal articles and conference contributions (with an ISSN). Upload your accepted manuscript version via Symplectic to ORE upon (within three months of) acceptance. When you publish open access with a Creative Commons licence on the publisher website, this complies with REF policy so you no longer need to upload to ORE. Visit the REF open access policy page for further details.

Peer-reviewed articles and conference papers

New UKRI open access policy applies to peer-reviewed original research articles, review articles and conference papers acknowledging funding from UKRI or any of its constituent councils, first submitted for publication from 1st April 2022. Visit the funder policies page for more information. If the output was first submitted before 1st April 2022, previous UKRI open access policy applies.

Monographs, long form outputs

New UKRI open access policy applies to long form outputs (monographs, chapters, edited collections) acknowledging funding from UKRI or any of its constituent councils, published on or after 1st January 2024. Visit the funder policies page for more information.

Peer-reviewed original research articles submitted from 1st January 2021

Wellcome Trust OA policy 2021 applies to peer-reviewed original research articles submitted for publication after 01 January 2021. In-scope research articles must be open access with the Creative Commons Attribution Licence CC BY (only) immediately upon publication, in PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC. Visit the funder policies page for more information.

Book chapters and monographs

Wellcome Trust funded book chapters and monographs must be deposited in PMC Bookshelf and made OA there not longer than 6 months after publication. Visit the funder policies page for more information.

If your research was externally funded, your funder may require you to make your work open access either in a repository, or by paying for open access, they may require this immediately or an embargo may be allowed. Check your funder open access policy for details, check the terms and conditions of your research grant to see if any open access obligations apply and whether publication fees are eligible costs. Visit the funder requirements page, for further details of funder open access policies.

If you have no external funding, you only need to ensure you meet the requirements of the University and REF open access policy.

To comply with both, upload your accepted manuscript upon (within three months of) acceptance via Symplectic to ORE.

Institutional open access fund are available to pay open access publishing fees for outputs that are not eligible to have open access costs paid by a funder of research, you can also publish open access at no extra cost through publisher Transformative Agreements when you are the corresponding author.