Open access costs

• UKRI Block Grant

  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.

• Wellcome Trust

  Researchers must follow the process below to apply for Wellcome Trust support for costs associated with fully open access publishing.

  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
  Alternatively, 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.

  Criteria for covering publication costs
  As of 1 January 2025, Wellcome will now 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.

• EU grants

  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 £2,000 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.

  Frontier Research grants
  For beneficiaries of the UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee, publication costs are eligible within the awarded grant. When publishing in fully open access journals that are not covered by a transformative agreement, you should use your grant to cover these costs. Please note that applications for the UKRI block grant cannot be made in these cases.

  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.

• Library Open Access Fund (LOAF)

  The University may have funds available to support the University’s open access Policy, available for current staff and students publishing in fully open access venues only where the author has no other source of funds.

  To claim using this fund, contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk with details of your publication, provide confirmation of the criteria below, and establish we have allocated costs 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 current member of University of St Andrews staff or a current student, 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 work is an original research article or review
  • 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
  • contributions to OA models such as Subscribe to Open (S2O) or membership schemes may be available 
  • All claims must be sent in advance of any agreement to pay fees
  • Claims per author are limited to no more than 2 per month.

  Provide the following details to openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk

  • corresponding author's name, School and email address [current staff or student]
  • Journal and publisher
  • Article title
  • Identifier (if known) eg Manuscript ID or DOI 
  • Funder name and funder's Grant ID that will be acknowledged in the work (if applicable)

  Additional monograph criteria

  Applications for OA books may be considered as long as the publication venue is fully open (and not hybrid) or the publisher has a clear OA transition model.

  Contributions from LOAF will be no more than £4k and up to the lowest of:

  • 50% of the total cost
  • The amount contributed by the academic, School, or other authors' institution

  Contributions can only be considered where there are not grant or other funds that could support the publication.

  Valid until our limited budget allocation from the LOAF runs out.

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