Apply for Gold open access publishing funds

 The fund is comprised of the following:

• A block grant from UKRI to support eligible open access costs for research directly acknowledging UKRI funding. The Block Grant does not cover APC costs for publishing open access in hybrid journals which are not part of a Jisc-approved Transformative Agreement.

• Central funding to support open access costs for journal articles which do not acknowledge any funding, or where the funder does not provide a specific award for publishing costs. Some funders allow publishing costs to be met or claimed back from grants. Where this is the case, the University expects these funds to be used first before applying for central funding.  

• Other funder block grants, which may vary based on our research award portfolio, e.g. British Heart Foundation.

Open access publishing costs are mainly paid through the following routes: 

• direct payment - fees are paid upon receipt of the invoice for articles where Open Access has confirmed in advance that funds for publishing are available.

• funder pays - some funders have direct mechanisms for making open access payments, Wellcome Trust is one of these - see below.  Other funder programmes, like Horizon Europe, may allow publishing costs to be paid from a research grant. Where this is the case, the University expects these funds to be used first before applying to the central fund. 

• pre-payment accounts - where credit is lodged with a publisher in advance and is used up as articles are published; these often offer discounted publishing costs compared to pay-as- you-go publishing.

• transformative agreements - these include Read and Publish subscription deals which offset the costs of publishing and reading for hybrid journals. These are journals which contain both fully open and paywalled content, and charge both Article Processing Charges (APCs) for immediate open access and subscription fees for access to subscription only content. 

  Only Transformative Agreements negotiated for the UK HE sector through Jisc currently meet funder and University open access requirements. See What is a transformative agreement? 

Wellcome Trust

The University does not currently hold publishing funds for Wellcome Trust. Corresponding authors acknowledging Wellcome Trust grants in their article should claim these from the funder directly, following the mechanism advised by the funder.

Wellcome operates a strict open access policy and will not cover APC costs for articles published in hybrid journals which are not compliant with its terms and conditions. Authors acknowledging Wellcome Trust funding are advised to check before submission that the chosen publishing route and licence will meet Wellcome's open access policy using the Journal Checker Tool, or contacting Open Access.

Please note that the Open Access Publishing Fund will not ordinarily be able to meet the APC costs for articles acknowledging Wellcome grants as the funder reimburses costs directly to the grant. However, Open Access will provide authors with all the support needed to liaise with the funder and publisher and process the payment on your behalf through the grant. 

Authors should first complete an APC funding request form for the preferred journal or journals, before submitting a manuscript to the publisher. See our video on how to complete the form: How to fill in the APC funding request form.

1. Apply for APC funding before manuscript submission using the APC Funding Request Form.

2. Await confirmation from the Open Access team that your article is eligible to have its open access charges covered.

3. Once you have confirmation, submit your manuscript. 
   
   Make sure your manuscript submission includes: 

   • your unique ORCiD.

   • any required funder acknowledgments, including the official funder grant reference number.

   • The correct University affiliation:
     Brunel University London

   • a Data Access Statement. If you deposit the underpinning research data in Brunel Figshare you will be able to get a unique DOI for the underpinning research data to include in the Data Access Statement. This will allow you to track citations and reuse and help to evidence impact. See our Research data management web page for more information.

   • a Rights Retention Statement in line with the University's Institutional Rights Retention Policy for research articles. 

See below for steps that must be completed on acceptance. 

Brunel authors should follow the steps below to upload the Author Accepted Manuscript to their BRAD account immediately on acceptance for all journal articles and conference papers.  This is required under the University's Open Access Mandate, and will help to ensure that the article will meet REF and funder open access policy requirements. 

As not all papers submitted are accepted, this also confirms to Open Access that the paper is being published, and if APC funding has been requested, confirm that any publishing funds held in reserve, will be required. 

For papers with an external corresponding author, Brunel authors must still deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript, in case the corresponding author fails to do so. If this is not possible, authors should contact BRAD at the earliest opportunity for further advice. 

Please note that you will need to have completed the pre-submission steps above before doing so, as your article may not be compliant and may be eligible to have open access fees covered by the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. 

If you are new to BRAD, you can view an introductory video and the open access roadmap page and BRAD user guide for more information on how to deposit your accepted manuscript. 

1. 1. Go to the manual record screen of your publication in BRAD.

   2. Answer Yes to the question: Do you want to apply for APC funding?  You must also complete the pre-submission funding request form. 

   3. Enter details of the corresponding author's institution, if not Brunel University London. Please note we are unable to meet APC costs for corresponding authors outside Brunel.

   4. Link your publication to all relevant grants - you may need to add your grant as a manual record if not already listed. 

   5. Enter any additional information relevant to your request in the comments box, e.g. external sources of funding not held by Brunel and any grant/funder information not yet linked. 

      

   6. Upload the Author Accepted Manuscript to the publication record.

The University is able to fund Article Processing Charge (APC) costs for Brunel staff corresponding authors with research responsibility, who are employed by the University at the time of submission. Authors need to demonstrate that that they meet eligibility requirements and must first receive confirmation from Open Access that APC funding can be made available before submitting a manuscript to a publisher. 

Although it is now common to see multiple authors listed as corresponding on a published paper, where this is the case, the submitting corresponding author is held as the corresponding author by both publishers and institutions, for the purpose of deciding responsibility for APC funding, including funding under Read and Publish agreements.

Corresponding author status should be decided according to standard disciplinary practice and contribution. This is normally the lead or first author. Where the corresponding author is based elsewhere, their institution or organisation is expected to meet the APC costs. If an article identifies multiple corresponding authors, for APC funding purposes, it is the submitting author's institution that is expected to meet any publishing costs. 

Authors should ensure that the submitting corresponding author is chosen appropriately with contribution and standard disciplinary norms. Where the corresponding author is not a current member of academic staff, and is therefore ineligible for APC funding, open access can be achieved by Brunel authors via deposit in the institutional repository via BRAD,  under the University's instititutional rights retention policy, which applies to all affiliated authors. 

Staff co-authors 
If an eligible member of staff is a co-author but is not the corresponding author, they are not usually eligible to access the fund, including those held in Transformative Agreements. The fund is unable to support corresponding authors of other organisations. Authors may wish to bear this in mind when deciding corresponding author responsibility, and if the corresponding author's institution or organisation is unable to cover the APC, they should ensure that they are able to meet REF and funder open access requirements.

Where appropriate, based on discipline norms and academic contribution, and subject to agreement from fellow co-authors, it is sometimes possible for a Brunel staff co-author to assume corresponding author responsibility and will then be eligible to apply for APC funding, subject to sufficient remaining funds. Please seek advice from Open Access if this situation applies. 

Where it is not appropriate for an eligible Brunel staff co-author to be the corresponding author, authors are advised to choose an alternative suitable compliant route, or to follow rights retention steps to allow deposit of the peer-reviewed and accepted manuscript under a CC-BY licence on first publication. This will make sure the article complies with the grant terms and conditions.  

Doctoral researchers
Doctoral researchers are not subject to the University's Open Access Mandate and are therefore not normally eligible to access the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.  This also includes Read and Publish Transformative Agreements which are currently only available to staff corresponding authors under current sector requirements.  

However, some exceptions apply, if you are on a PhD by Published Works programme, or are funded by UKRI, or are corresponding author of a paper required to acknowledge a specific research grant for which we are in receipt of grant funds. Please contact Open Access for advice in the first instance, by completing a pre-submission funding request form.  

In other circumstances, and only if this is appropriate according to contribution and other discipline standards, an eligible research staff co-author may assume corresponding author responsibility and would then be eligible to apply for APC funding.  

Subject to available funds, the University will pay an APC for a research article by Brunel staff corresponding authors which acknowledge a research grant, where payment is needed to comply with funder requirements for open access and where other funds are not available. 

Some Transformative Agreements may have restrictions on whether they can be used by outputs which do not acknowledge a research grant, or offer more restrictive licence options. 

Authors acknowledging research grants, should check their publication route eligibility and if the route is fully open access, contact Open Access before submission. Authors should also deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in BRAD immediately on acceptance, either directly, or for authors who do not have access to BRAD, by contacting the team directly: brad@brunel.ac.uk 

Authors without grant funding can also follow the same steps to request APC funding, where publishing in fully open access journals. 

Not all types of research output are eligible for funding. To be considered, your output should be one of the following types:

• peer reviewed primary research article

• systematic review

• conference proceedings with an ISSN

• non-commissioned / invited review articles* 

• all review articles acknowledging a UKRI grant.**

*Commissioned/invited reviews are not currently in scope of the fund. Authors may follow traditional publishing routes, and make the article available in the institutional repository, or find alternative sources of funding. However, please check with Open Access if you are unsure.

** The UKRI's open access policy covers all review articles including those invited or commissioned papers, where they acknowledge a UKRI grant. These are now eligible to access UKRI open access funding administered by Brunel. 

It is not usually possible to pay an APC retrospectively for a paper that has previously been published, except where this is required by a funder to comply with grant terms and conditions. 

Funds also will not be released for outputs that do not comply with the University's open access policy, any relevant funder's open access policy and Research Excellence Framework (REF) policy on open access. 

When selecting a potential publisher, authors can check whether the chosen journal and publisher meets funder and REF open access requirements using the Jisc SHERPA tools and the Journal Checker Tool.  Please contact Open Access for guidance.

Hybrid journals charge both Article Processing Charges (APCs) for open access publishing and subscription fees to access subscription only content. 

Many UK and international public funders, including UKRI, Wellcome Trust and the European Commission, no longer support publication in hybrid journals unless they are published under a funder-approved transformative arrangement.  These agreements offset the costs of reading and publishing and implement the cOAlition S Plan S principles designed to accelerate the transition to full open access and remove delays and barriers encountered by those who fund, carry out or use publicly funded research. In the UK, Transformative Agreements and Transformative Journals must be approved by Jisc to meet UK funder requirements.

To meet open access requirements, corresponding authors should check their publishing venue before submission using the Journal Checker Tool on Plan S and publishing your research.  

If the journal does not offer a compliant route, authors are advised to use rights retention or choose an alternative route. All authors will be able to benefit from the new institutional rights retention policy from October 2024.  Where other available journals are not suitable,  please get in touch with the Open Access team and we will work with you to look into all options available to help you publish using the best available route. 

Grant funded corresponding authors: If your article acknowledges grant funding from UKRI, Wellcome Trust and other Plan S funders, you will need to choose an alternative route to remain compliant with the grant's terms and conditions and avoid incurring any funder applied sanctions.  You will also not be able to access any open access publishing funds held for non-compliant routes. 

Non-funded corresponding authors:  It is recommended that you choose a UKRI compliant publishing route or apply rights retention wording to your manuscript at the point of submission, wherever possible. This will also support national negotiations for UK Transformative Agreements. However, your article will continue to comply with current REF open access policy until it is revised at a later date, but it is expected that future REF policy will be the same or similar to the UKRI open access policy requirements implemented on 1 April 2022.

If you are not acknowledging a specific research grant and are unable to make your research immediately open on publication through paid open access publishing or rights retention, contact Open Access for advice.