Open Access: Wellcome Trust, CRUK, & BHF OA Policies

The policy:

All publications that report original research, which has been supported in whole, or in part, by Wellcome must:

• be made freely available from Europe PubMed Central upon publication
• be under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, or a CC-BY-ND licence by exception
• include a data availability statement, in line with our data, software and materials management and sharing policy.

How to comply:

To comply with the policy, researchers must ensure that a version of the research publication is available within Europe PMC under a CC BY licence. This could be:

• the Version of Record, or
• the Author Accepted Manuscript

If you are unable to make the Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript open access, then you may post a preprint under a CC BY licence. We will accept this as compliant with the policy in these situations. 

Exceptions for scholarly monographs and book chapters:

• Content may be embargoed for up to 6 months from the official final publication date prior to release in Europe PMC.
• Where an open access fee is paid, researchers can choose the Creative Commons licence the work is published under. Our preference is for CC BY.

Full policy details available here.

Updated January 2024

British Heart Foundation grant holders should ensure that an electronic copy of each primary research paper or non-commissioned review funded wholly or in part by the BHF is made freely available in Europe PubMed Central as soon as possible and no later than 6 months after publication.

It is a Condition of Grant that Grant Holders acknowledge BHF support by quoting “British Heart Foundation” followed by the award reference number in the appropriate section of all publications arising from BHF funded research.

BHF Open Access Policy

The policy:

From 1 January 2022, if you have a research paper accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, you must ensure that the following requirements are met:

1. An electronic copy of the final paper must be made freely available in Europe PubMed Central at the time of final publication.

2. The open access version of your research paper must be published with a CC-BY 4.0 licence.

3. You must acknowledge Cancer Research UK funding in the funding acknowledgement section of the paper, using your grant reference number.

Routes to compliance:

The above requirements can be met through the following routes:

Route 1: Publish in a fully open access or hybrid journal which makes the Version of Record (VoR) freely available immediately on publication. Typically, the journal deposits the final publication in Europe PMC on the authors' behalf.

Route 2: Publish in a subscription journal and make the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) available immediately on publication. Typically, the author self-deposits the AAM on Europe PMC at the time of final publication.

Route 3: Publish in a journal that has agreed a transformative agreement with Queen's.

CRUK Policy on Open Access