Wellcome Trust Open Access (OA) Policy is changing in 2021.

 

 

Below are some points authors may like to consider before the new policy comes into force, for articles submitted for publication from 1 January 2021. Full details of the new policy can be found on the Wellcome Trust website.

What is the new Wellcome Trust OA policy?

All research articles submitted from 1 January 2021 must be freely available in PMC/Europe PMC at the time of publication and with a CC-BY licence. The 6-month embargo will no longer be permitted. OA publication costs in hybrid journals will no longer be funded.

What research is affected by the new policy?

The new policy will apply to all research articles supported in whole or in part by Wellcome.

Will I still be able to use Wellcome Open Research Platform?

Yes. If you haven’t used the Wellcome Open Research publishing platform before, you may like to check if it will suit your needs as it is still a compliant option under the new policy.

Will Wellcome continue to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs)?

Under the new policy Wellcome will pay APCs for articles published in fully open access journals (ie not subscription journals with an OA option or hybrid journals) which meet the CC-BY and PubMed Central/Europe PMC requirements.

How can I check that my chosen journal is fully open access (i.e. all articles are published immediately OA in the journal) and therefore WT compliant?

  • If your chosen journal is listed in the Directory of OA Journals it means it is fully OA.
  • Before 1st January 2021 Wellcome Trust will publish further guidance on which journals are compliant with its policy, and which will include compliant journals that may not be listed in DOAJ (e.g. BMJ Journal which publishes all research articles open access, but charges for access to other content such as editorials and commentaries – this type of journal is not considered to be hybrid by Wellcome).
  • Wellcome mentions eLife, PLoS journals and Wellcome Open Research as compliant.
  • Contact library-research-support@open.ac.uk for further help.

My chosen journal is not fully OA. Will I be able to publish in it and still be compliant?

You can publish in a subscription journal and be compliant with the new policy providing:

  • You can self-archive your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) in Europe PMC.
  • Your AAM is made immediately available (no embargo) under a CC-BY licence.

Examples of already ‘green compliant’ publishers: Royal Society, Microbiology Society.

Will Wellcome pay page and other non-OA publication charges?

No. Wellcome will not provide funds for non-OA publication costs, e.g. colour, page charges etc. Note that since 1st March 2019 you may not include such charges within grant applications or claim them back. This policy will continue with the revised OA policy. WT states that “Where these costs apply, researchers must use other funds to meet these costs.”

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