REF and funder requirements
Library support for funder policy compliance
Complying with REF and external funder open access policies
Most research funders mandate that research they fund must be published open access within a specified time frame. The grant holder is responsible for ensuring all eligible outputs comply with their funder’s open access policy.
Contact the Open Access team to discuss compliance when you're ready to submit your paper for publication.
Many funders also now require open access for supporting research data. For more information, see our Research Data Management pages and RDM Toolkit or contact the Data Library.
Here is an overview of the key funder open access policies and how to comply.
While Research England review their open access policy, the rules for REF2021 still apply to all papers accepted for publication from 1 Jan 2021.
What do I need to do to comply?
- Act on Acceptance - the final peer-reviewed manuscript of journal articles and conference papers must be deposited in LSE Research Online within 3 months of the date of acceptance. To deposit, email your manuscripts and the date of acceptance to lseresearchonline@lse.ac.uk.
- If your paper has been published Gold open access, you must still deposit in LSE Research Online but you can add the final version on publication.
- In some cases where it has not been possible to comply with the open access requirements, we may be able to apply an exception.
Contact the Open Access team if you have any queries about the REF open access policy and exceptions.
Policy requirements for journal and conference articles
- UKRI-funded articles must be made open access immediately with a CC BY licence and no embargo.
- Acknowledge your funding. Guidance on wording a funding statement.
- Include a data access statement. You must do this even if there is no underlying data or the data is not accessible. For help, see the Research Data Management web page.
- MRC and BBSRC funded researchers must also deposit their papers in EuropePMC.
How do I comply?
Check if your chosen journal has a compliant open access route before you submit your paper. Contact the Open Access team for help checking journal compliance.
There are two routes to compliance:
Route 1: Gold open access
- Publish open access in a journal or publishing platform which makes the Version of Record immediately open access with a CC BY licence.
- This can be in a journal covered by one of LSE's transformative publishing agreements (List of eligible journals, LSE author MUST be the corresponding author) or a fully open access journal (indexed in Directory of Open Access Journals).
Route 2: Green open access (if it is not possible to comply via Route 1)
- Publish the article in a subscription journal and deposit your Author Accepted Manuscript in LSE Research Online with a CC BY licence.
Policy requirements for monographs, chapters and edited collections
- Either the version of record or the accepted manuscript must be open access within 12 months of first publication.
- Creative Commons or Open Government Licence must be applied (CC BY is preferred but other CC licences will be accepted).
- Funding must be properly acknowledged.
- The open access version should include, where possible, any images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content. Creative Commons licences do not need to be applied to third party copyright material. For more information see the UKRI guide on managing third-party copyright in your publications.
- Exemptions are available for books that are under contract before 1 Jan 2024 and in a small number of other circumstances.
How do I comply?
- Contact the Open Access team as early as possible if you are planning to publish a book or chapter acknowledging UKRI funding. Fill in the form to alert the Open Access team to your publication.
- You should also inform your preferred publisher as early as possible and ask if they offer a compliant route to open access.
There are two routes to compliance:
Green open access
- If copyright permits, you may be able to comply with the policy at no cost, by depositing an accepted version of the manuscript in LSE Research Online.
- Where an author’s accepted manuscript is deposited, it should be clear that this is not the final published version.
Gold open access
- UKRI has a central fund available to support immediate open access of in-scope publications.
- Applications to the fund are a two-stage process: Stage 1: notifying UKRI of the forthcoming publication and receiving assurance about eligibility for funding (this can be done before the contract is signed). Stage 2: supplying evidence of open access publication to UKRI and receiving funds.
- LSE Library’s Open Access team will submit the application on behalf of the researcher, manage the invoice payment and receipt of funds back from UKRI.
- UKRI have set these as the maximum funding contributions (inclusive of VAT £10,000 for book processing charges£1,000 for chapter processing charges
UKRI open access policy and FAQ
UKRI guide on managing third-party copyright in your publications
Peer-reviewed research articles and monographs wholly or partly funded by Horizon Europe, must be made available open access immediately and no later than the date of publication.
Policy requirements:
- Either the version of record or the author accepted manuscript must be deposited in LSE Research Online and made immediately open access with a CC BY licence (more restrictive licences are permitted for books and chapters)
- Provide an acknowledgement of funding in the following format: "This project has received funding from the [European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme] under grant number No. [Number]."
- Add the paper into your final report to the European Commission.
How do I comply?
Check that your publisher offers a compliant route to open access before submitting your manuscript.
Gold open access
You cannot use LSE’s open access funds to comply with the Horizon Europe open access policy. You should budget open access publishing fees into your grant application (they can be included as "direct eligible costs" providing they are incurred during the lifespan of the project).
- For journal and conference articles: If your paper is accepted in an eligible journal covered by one of our transformative publishing agreements, the paper can be published Gold open access without the payment of an APC.For fully open access journals (indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals), you can cover publication fees from your Horizon Europe grant.
- For books and chapters: You can cover reasonable publication fees from your Horizon Europe grant (note that open access fees for chapters published in books that are not fully open access are not eligible costs).You must deposit the final published version of all publications in LSE Research Online no later than the date of publication.
Green open access
- Deposited the accepted version of your manuscript in LSE Research Online and make it open access with a CC BY licence on publication.
- A more restrictive licence may be permitted for books and chapters.
Contact the Open Access team if you have any questions about complying with your EU funder.
This policy applies to all peer-reviewed research articles, including reviews not commissioned by publishers and conference papers, submitted for publication on or after 1 June 2022 arising from:
- NIHR Programmes, NIHR Personal Awards and NIHR Global Health Research Portfolio: research studies where the research costs are funded in whole or in part by the NIHR. Personal awards that do not fund research are out of scope of this policy.
- NIHR Infrastructure (including NIHR research units and schools): research studies where the majority of the research costs are funded by the NIHR.
Monographs and chapters are out of scope.
Policy requirements:
- Either the accepted manuscript or the final published version must be made immediately open access in Europe PMC with a CC BY licence on publication.
- Funding must be properly acknowledged.
- Data sharing statements that describe how to access the underpinning research data must be included.
How do I comply?
Gold open access
- Publish your paper in one of the journals included in LSE’s transformative publishing agreements. Either you or the publisher MUST deposit the final published version in Europe PMC no later than the final date of publication.
- When an Open Access payment is required, NIHR will pay reasonable fees to effect publication in line with the criteria of this policy.
- Authors should read the Open Access funding guidance for information on the terms and processes for accessing Open Access funding from NIHR. Open Access funding requests can be made using an NIHR Open Access request form.
- NIHR will fund open access if the following conditions are met: CC BY licence is chosenThe journal has an agreement with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to deposit the paper in Europe PMC no later than the date of publication.
Green open access
- The accepted manuscript must be deposited in Europe PMC and LSE Research Online by the date of first online publication and made immediately open access with a CC BY licence.
Contact the Open Access team if you have any questions.
If your research funder is not listed here, contact the Open Access team and we will advise on how to ensure your research outputs comply with any open access requirements.
Examples of funder policies we can help with include: