Support for Open Access Funding
Explore open access options, how to access open access publishing agreements and funding for immediate open access.
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Open Access Options
There are several routes to making your research outputs open access.
- Under our Research Publications (Open Access) Policy University of Salford authors can make the accepted version of their articles open access on publication in our repository USIR via Worktribe.
- Publish in journals that do not charge a fee to publish or subscribe
- Alternatively, we have agreements with several academic journal publishers which enable Salford corresponding authors to publish open access without a fee.
- If the journal you wish to publish with requires a fee to publish there is limited funding provided by the University, and from the UKRI Research council for articles which acknowledge UKRI funding. You must apply to the UKRI and Institutional Open Access Funds before your paper is accepted for publication. The funds are limited and will be allocated on a first come, first served basis, subject to the eligibility criteria and ADRI approval.
If your research output is in a different format (e.g. a monograph, a chapter in an edited book, a performance or a patent) we recommend that you make your research output open access if you can. Some funders, for example UKRI, have open access requirements for monographs and chapters as well as articles. Email library-research@salford.ac.uk to check compliance and discuss your options.
Publish Open Access without charge
There are alternatives to paying for open access.
You can make your author accepted manuscript (AAM) open access via a repository, such as University of Salford Institutional Repository (USIR, powered by Worktribe™).
- The Research Publications (Open Access) Policy requires staff and postgraduate students to submit their journal articles or conference contributions with an ISSN to USIR via Worktribe at the point of acceptance for publication.
- The Library will make the AAM open access on publication if we have notified the publisher and there is not an open Version of Record
- Exceptions to the policy may apply
You can also choose to publish in a diamond journal that does not charge a fee to read or to publish open access. The Directory of Open Access Journals lists more than 14,000 diamond OA titles ("without fees").
Publisher agreements
We have agreements with several academic journal publishers which reduce or remove the cost of publishing open access in their journals.
Who can use these publisher agreements?
Current University of Salford affiliated research staff, emeritus positions and postgraduate research students who are nominated as the corresponding author can publish using these agreements.
In accordance with JISC guidelines, corresponding authors will not normally be eligible to use an agreement if they are:
- honorary
- visiting
- NHS members of staff without a contract of employment at the relevant institution.
If you are not sure, contact library-research@salford.ac.uk
How do I know if a journal title is covered by an agreement or not?
These agreements cover thousands of titles, but it can be difficult for authors to identify which journals are covered by the agreements.
University of Salford authors now have an easier way to identify which journals are covered by the University of Salford Library's open access agreements with publishers. Journal Search Tool identifies key open access details per title which can help researchers decide where to publish, and help the Library to get the best possible return on the investment in publisher agreements.
If you are not sure, contact library-research@salford.ac.uk
What is covered by these agreements and what is not?
Each agreement is different and may cover the full article processing charge or provide a discount. Where our agreement offers a discount on the open access fee authors must apply for open access funding before submitting their paper.
Please note that additional publication charges, such as colour charges and page charges, are not included in these agreements. Authors should arrange alternative funding to cover these additional costs before committing to publish.
All agreements include original research and review articles. Some other article types such as book reviews may be excluded. For more information you should contact the publisher of the journal to which you are submitting.
Licensing
If given the option to select a licence, we recommend you select the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY) license to maximise research dissemination and reuse. The CC BY licence is a requirement for many funders, such as UKRI, Wellcome Trust and NIHR.
Which publisher agreements does the University of Salford provide?
Agreements offering free open access in subscription and/or fully open access journals:
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
- Cambridge University Press
- Cogitatio Press
- Microbiology Society
- Oxford University Press
- PLOS flat fee agreement, PLOS Biology, PLOS Medicine
- Sage
- Taylor & Francis
- Wiley
- Wolters Kluwer (in subscription journals which offer open access publishing)
Agreements offering open access in subscription journals (also known as ‘hybrid’) and/or a discount on publishing charges in fully open access journals. Open access funding is not guaranteed. Authors should apply using the Support for Open Access form on submission to fully open access journals:
Apply for Open Access funding
Before applying for open access funding you should check that there is not an equivalent free open access option for your output, for example a journal that is part of a publisher agreement or a journal which does not charge a fee to publish.
Institutional Open Access Fund
The University of Salford provides a modest Institutional Open Access Fund to cover open access charges where alternative routes to open access are not available.
How do I access the fund?
Salford authors should apply for open access funding on submission of the article to ensure there is time to make alternative arrangements if funding is not available or not approved.
Note for SSEE authors: Before applying for open access funding, engage with the School's pre-publication process, by emailing papers with REF 3* or 4* potential to See-Ref@salford.ac.uk so they can be allocated to an IPR panel member for pre-publication assessment.
- Applications must be made using the Apply for funding form below.
- Applications will be checked by the Library and sent to the appropriate Associate Dean Research & Innovation (ADRI) for a decision, subject to the availability of funds.
- Subject to available funds, meeting the eligibility criteria, and approval, the Institutional Open Access fund will pay up to the full open access cost plus any applicable VAT on your behalf.
To be eligible for funding at least one of the article's authors must be a current member of University of Salford academic staff or postgraduate research student (PGR) and meet at least one of the following criteria.
- Your research is expected to be included in Salford's REF submission and assessed as 3* or 4* quality
- Your research needs to be openly and immediately available in order to achieve its potential impact by being accessible to a non-academic audience (e.g. schoolteachers, health professionals, industry leaders)
- You do not have any other free to publish options (for example your discipline is not covered by our publisher agreements) and so you must publish in a journal which charges a fee to publish
Applications from emeritus or associate appointments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Honorary appointments are not eligible for funding.
Has your research been impacted by your protected characteristics or personal circumstances? If it has, and you think it would benefit from receiving Open Access funding to increase its reach and impact, please email the Library or your ADRI with the details to support your application.
Additional criteria
- We will only support applications for credible open access journals. Authors should run a quick 'think, check, submit' credibility check before applying or contact the Library for advice.
- Priority will be given to pure open access journals and the fund is not intended for the use of hybrid, where the green self-archiving route is available for open access.
UKRI open access fund
Our UKRI fund supports open access for any articles which acknowledge UKRI funding and can be published via gold open access with a CC-BY licence. Subject to available funds, the UKRI open access fund will pay up to the full cost of the APC plus any applicable VAT on your behalf.
UKRI-funded research articles must include a data access statement explaining how the supporting research data can be accessed, or why access is restricted.
Open Access Monographs
Books and monographs benefit from open access in many of the same ways as articles.
There's been much more progress to date making articles open access as standard. But as funder open access policies respond to Plan S there's increased momentum to make publicly funded monographs open access. However, there are barriers:
- books operate on a much longer time scale than articles;
- publisher processes for managing open access monographs are in their infancy
- there's a perceived prestige of publishing, with established publishers using traditional publishing models and open access costs can be prohibitive.
There are also additional copyright considerations, for example, the use of third-party copyright and the impact of adapted works such as translations.
The UKRI's open access policy requires that monographs and chapters should be available open access, with a creative commons licence, within a maximum of 12 months of publication.
Funding is available from UKRI to pay for open access via the Library. The next REF open access policy is likely to include a similar requirement for monographs.
The University is keen to support authors to make their monographs open access and meet funder requirements. We aim to ensure our investment reflects the University of Salford’s current and future research and teaching needs.
We therefore recommend that authors, and research leads approving applications for open access funding, consider the following:
- Choose a publisher which doesn't charge a Book Processing Charge (BPC). The OA Books toolkit describes the different publishing models available with suggested publishers.
- Embargoes on open access shouldn't exceed 12 months.
- Consider green open access by self-archiving in USIR. Most publishers don't currently allow the whole book to be made open access, but many will allow the accepted version of an individual chapter to be made open access.
- A CC BY licence is preferred as the least restrictive licence, but authors should consider carefully if a more restrictive licence is required. The Creative Commons Licence Chooser can help authors choose the correct licence for their work.
- Explore different funding options. The OA Books toolkit provides an overview of available funding.
Are you interested in publishing your monograph open access? Before making any decisions or agreements with publishers, please discuss your options with Wendy Taylor, Open Research Coordinator (Publishing), at library-research@salford.ac.uk.