UKRI’s new OA policy: Further details

Author actions:  

• use the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to identify fully Open Access journals in your discipline; 
• prior to submission, use the Open Access enquiry form to check that the Library can cover the associated Article Processing Charge (APC), to support Open Access publication and compliance with UKRI’s OA policy. 

Example journals:  

Journals in which Faculty of Humanities authors frequently publish: 

• International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 
• PL o S One 
• Frontiers in Psychology. 

Journals in which Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health authors frequently publish: 

• BMJ Open 
• Scientific Reports 
• Nature Communications. 

Journals in which Faculty of Science and Engineering authors frequently publish:  

• Nature Communications 
• Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 
• Scientific Reports. 

Full details of compliance requirement:

• Subscription journals in which it’s possible to publish papers immediately Open Access (hybrid OA).
• Journals which are included in a Transformative Agreement between the University and the publisher, meaning that UKRI-funded Manchester corresponding authors can publish papers immediately OA in this journal for no additional fee, ensuring compliance with UKRI’s policy.

Author actions:

• check the publisher of the preferred journal;
• select the publisher on the Library’s Transformative Agreement webpage;
• read the details of the publisher’s deal to check that your preferred journal is included in the deal, and if so, instructions for accessing the deal;
• if the preferred journal is not covered by a Transformative Agreement, authors should contact the Library’s Open Access Team to discuss alternative possible compliance routes.

Example journals:

Journals in which Faculty of Humanities authors frequently publish:

• Journal of Medical Ethics
• Sociology
• Ethnic and Racial Studies.

Journals in which Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health frequently publish:

• Rheumatology
• British Journal of Dermatology
• International Journal of Audiology.

Journals in which Faculty of Science and Engineering authors frequently publish:

• Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices
• Acta Materialia
• AngewandteChemie. International Edition.

Full details of compliance requirement:

Some journals have been granted ‘Transformative Journal’ status by UKRI. Please see Jisc’s website for details of the criteria which journals must meet to achieve this status. Please note that UKRI and Plan S have different criteria for determining Transformative Journals.

It is possible to use institutional UKRI Open Access funding to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) to publish a paper Gold (immediate) Open Access in a Transformative Journal in the following circumstances;

• there is a Jisc-approved Transformative Agreement available with the publisher, but Manchester has not taken this Agreement;

OR

• there is no Transformative Agreement available, but the publisher allows immediate self-archiving via Pure under CC-BY, and there is a compelling need for Gold Open Access via the journal website (for example, related to publication strategy).

Author actions:

• authors interested in publishing in a subscription journal should check to see if the journal is covered via a Transformative Agreement – see Compliance route 2 above;
• if Compliance route 2 is not possible, or authors are unsure, authors should contact the Library’s Open Access Team to discuss alternative possible compliance routes.
• Prior to launch of a new Journal Checker Tool, currently being developed by Jisc, the Library's Open Access Team can determine if the author’s preferred journal has been granted ‘Transformative Journal’ status by UKRI, and advise authors if it’s therefore possible to cover the APC to publish the author’s paper Gold Open Access in the journal.

Example journals:

• None of the top 50 most-published-in journals by authors from the Faculties of Humanities or Biology, Medicine and Health require compliance via this route.

Journals in which Faculty of Science and Engineering authors frequently publish:

• American Chemical Society. Journal

• ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces

• Chemical Science.

Full details of compliance requirement:

Publish in a subscription journal that is not covered by a Transformative Agreement, and make the accepted manuscript available in Pure, under the CC BY licence, on publication.

Author actions:

• if an author’s preferred journal is not covered by a Transformative Agreement (route 2), and has not been granted UKRI ‘Transformative Journal’ status (route 3), papers will need to comply with UKRI’s policy via route 4. Authors can contact the Library’s Open Access team if unsure which compliance route/s are possible for preferred journals;
• to comply with UKRI’s policy via route 4, prior to submission, authors must ensure that their manuscript includes a licence statement in the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript and any cover letter/note accompanying the submission, to ensure that the paper can comply with UKRI’s OA policy. Authors can obtain the licence statement via the Library’s webpages;
• once the paper is accepted for publication, authors should deposit their Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) via the Library’s Open Access Gateway. The Library’s Open Access team will ensure that the paper meets funder and REF OA requirements by verifying the manuscript version, checking applicable journal and funder policies and ensuring immediate Open Access upon publication under the CC BY licence where possible.

Example journals:

Journals in which Faculty of Humanities authors frequently publish:

• Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal
• Employee Relations
• Water Alternatives.

Journals in which Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health authors frequently publish:

• The European Respiratory Journal
• BJC
• Nature Genetics.

Journals in which Faculty of Science and Engineering authors frequently publish:

• The Astrophysical Journal
• Physical Review D: Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology
• Astronomy & Astrophysics.