Open access costs

Changes in Wellcome Trust open access block grant funding
St Andrews will not receive a new grant for 2024 as we are below the £10,000 threshold for central funding set by Wellcome.
From April 2024, Wellcome will still support eligible costs to comply with their policy by supplementing individual research grants (see below).

Invoices and finance system transition
To avoid potential publication delay during the finance system transition St Andrews researchers should make their claim or forward invoices for claims already agreed as soon as possible to openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Open Access monographs
Unless authors acknowledge certain funders in their manuscript that have an open access requirement such as Wellcome Trust or the forthcoming UKRI requirement that starts in January 2024, their monograph doesn't need to be made open access.

Authors who do acknowledge UKRI or Wellcome are encouraged to contact openaccess@st andrews.ac.uk for further advice if they haven't already done so.

The University's policy is to support open access for monographs and chapters but only where there is a relevant funder requirement.

Researchers without dedicated funding who seek partial support to publish their monograph open access are encouraged to review our institutional open access fund criteria below.

In many cases, you can comply with REF and funders’ open access (OA) requirements without paying a fee, by uploading your Author Accepted Manuscript in Pure. The criteria for paying open access fees (known as 'Article Processing Charges' or APCs) depends on a range of factors including funder policies, publisher agreements in place and availability of funds. The University preference for the ‘green’ route as our preferred method of achieving open access means we do not support payment of individual APCs in hybrid journals (i.e. journals which charge for both subscriptions to content and additional fees per article for OA publishing) unless covered by transformative agreements.

Paying APCs
The University has a number of agreements and partnerships in place with publishers that can cover open access publishing fees as well as providing discounts on APCs in some instances. Check the University's list of OA agreements and partnerships or contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk for information.

The University has central funding available to support the open access policies for UK Research Councils, Wellcome Trust and other charities. Some funders provide open access costs in individual grants. To claim Article Processing Charges (APCs) in fully OA journals from our central funds, to find out if your chosen journal is covered by an agreement, or to ask advice about paying APCs from grants, send the following details to openaccess@st andrews.ac.uk before committing to any OA fees.

Your name, School and email address
Journal and publisher
Article title, manuscript ID or DOI
Funder name and external Grant ID

This information applies to the current block grant. Some publications may be in scope of the previous UKRI open access policy which covers peer-reviewed research articles submitted before 1 April 2022. Articles submitted after 1 April 2022 must follow the updated UKRI open access policy.

The University of St Andrews currently receives a Block Grant from UKRI to cover the costs of compliance with their open access policy. Certain restrictions apply on the use of the UKRI block grant to help support a real transition to, and affordability of, immediate open access. To minimise our exposure to extra costs outside of fully OA journals and transitional agreements, APCs will not be paid for articles via the 'gold' route in hybrid (subscriptions-based) journals.

The UKRI Block Grant can therefore be used under these criteria to pay Article Processing Charges (APCs):
- APCs for articles published in fully OA journals (as listed in the DOAJ)
- the cost of APCs in hybrid journals covered by a transitional agreement – see Open Access Agreements and Partnerships).
- Some exceptions where the green route is particularly difficult and the article risks non-compliance – contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk with your Grant ID(s) and details of your article.
The block grant cannot be used to pay publication costs unrelated to open access, such as page or colour charges.

The UKRI OA Policy applies to peer-reviewed research papers in journals and conference proceedings. As noted above, for hybrid journals, Research Council-funded authors can usually comply via the 'green' route to open access.

To make a claim for APCs, or for further advice on 'Gold' or 'Green' options for your publication, contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk with your Grant ID(s) and details of your article.

For further details on how to comply with UKRI open access policy, check our webpages or consult the UKRI guidance.
Researchers can still apply for block grant support up to the end of March 2024 by contacting openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Application process for direct support
For direct support, you must apply to Wellcome. The Open Access Team will continue to assist you in determining coverage in our Read and Publish agreements or where costs may be partially covered by another funder – it may not be necessary to apply if your chosen journal is already included in an agreement.

Email the following details to openaccess@wellcome.org:
- Current employing organisation
- Title of the paper
- Wellcome grant reference number
- Journal title
- Proposed publication date
- Cost of the open access fee
“We will supplement your research grant and your organisation will be able to claim reimbursement for these additional costs in the usual way.

We will also provide open access funding when a research grant has ended.”

Policy on open access funding post-grant
Wellcome will reimburse the University for OA costs incurred after a grant has ended.
If this scenario applies to you please send the details requested above to
openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk as soon as possible and preferably prior to submission.

Future publication costs
From 1 January 2025, Wellcome will only fund publication costs in fully open access journals. This means they will not provide reimbursement for OA costs in hybrid (subscription-based) journals.

Licence selection
Where funds are used to pay an APC, Wellcome requires the use of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) Licence. See the Wellcome Trust's CC-BY FAQ for more information.

Monographs and book chapters
The Trust open access policy includes scholarly monographs and book chapters. Monographs and chapters can be deposited using the Wellcome Trust's deposit form. Funding for monographs and chapters will be provided directly by the Trust. See more in the Wellcome Trust guidance for open access to monographs and book chapters.
All open access costs from Horizon2020 projects must be paid from the relevant grant. The strict Horizon 2020 and ERC Open Access Policy requirements mean that APCs must usually be paid. An average APC is £1,500 but can be as much as £4,000.

For publications arising from new Horizon Europe grants, costs are only eligible for fully OA journals. Contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk for advice on costing.

For other research funders, you should check the terms and conditions of your grant, and you may need to include the costs of open access in your budget.
The University has a small fund available to support the University’s open access Policy, available for fully open access venues only where the author has no other source of funds.

To enquire about this fund, contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk with details of your publication and provide confirmation of the criteria below before committing to any fees.

Most funders will allow a claim for open access costs during the period of the grant. Where no funds are available, the University will consider supporting open access costs that meet the following criteria:
- the submitting or corresponding author is a member of University of St Andrews staff (affiliated students may be considered for funding, provided the St Andrews affiliation is clearly acknowledged)
- the journal or publishing venue is completely open access (i.e. 'hybrid' journals are not included) and is indexed in DOAB or DOAJ
- the journal meets the usual standards of quality and peer review for scholarly communication
- the author is required to pay a fee in order to publish
- the author confirms there is no other source of funding
- where possible, the resulting publication should be made available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) licence
- new open access 'business models', membership schemes and offsetting deals may be available and additional APC claims may be considered in special circumstances
- All claims must be sent in advance of any agreement to pay fees
- Claims are limited to no more than 2 per month.
Additional monograph criteria

Until July 2024 or until REF2028 guidance is announced, whichever is earlier, per book/chapter, contributions from IOAF will be up to the lowest of:
- 50% of the total cost
- Amount contributed by the academic, School, or other authors' institution
- £4K
As long as the publication venue is fully open (and not hybrid) or the publisher has a clear OA transition model.

Only where there are not grant or other funds that could support the publication.

Until our limited budget allocation from the IOAF runs out.

This is in addition to the output meeting the usual definition of a research output and being affiliated to St Andrews.

Open access costs

UKRI Block Grant

Wellcome Trust

EU grants

Institutional Open Access Fund (IOAF)