Policy
Deposit published or accepted version in Europe PMC with zero embargo.
CC BY license required where an open access fee is paid.
Routes to meeting open access requirements
Route 1 GOLD Publish in a fully open access journal, or gold open access in a hybrid journal, see 'paying for gold open access', as the Library’s CRUK fund will not always pay for this option in hybrid journals. The publisher should send the final version of record of your paper to Europe PMC once it is published. However, it is the responsibility of the funded author to ensure that the paper meets the requirements, so we recommend checking that the deposit has been made, see Depositing in PubMed Central and Europe PMC.
OR
Route 2 GREEN Publish in a subscription journal and take responsibility for making the author’s accepted manuscript freely available from Europe PMC at the time of publication, see Depositing in PubMed Central and Europe PMC. Imperial’s research publications open access policy (RPOAP) allows you to deposit with zero embargo for notified publishers, provided you first deposit in Spiral via Symplectic. See the RPOAP webpage for further details and a list of notified publishers.
OR
Route 3 GOLD Publish in a subscription journal through a transformative agreement Imperial has signed up to, see publisher agreements and discounts. The publisher should send the final version of record of your paper to Europe PMC once it is published. However, it is the responsibility of the funded author to ensure that the paper meets the requirements, so we recommend checking that the deposit has been made, see Depositing in PubMed Central and Europe PMC.
Scope of policy
Funding Publications which are funded in whole or part by CRUK.
Article types Original, primary research publications, including meta analyses, such as Cochrane Reviews.
The policy does not apply to other types of review, book chapters, monographs, editorials, or conference proceedings.
Paying for GOLD open access
Covers in-scope articles in fully open access journals and hybrid journals where no funder-compliant GREEN (self-archiving) route is available. In the vast majority of cases, Imperial’s research publications open access policy allows you to comply via GREEN open access, so we would not generally pay for hybrid journals.
You can also publish GOLD where eligible for a transformative agreement, see Publisher agreements and discounts. To have your paper included, follow the instructions for the relevant agreement. The corresponding author needs to have an Imperial College London affiliation, and other conditions may apply.
No cost is associated with open access via route 2 (GREEN).
We cannot pay page, colour or submission charges on any route.
Required license
No specific license for route 2 GREEN, although CC BY is encouraged. Imperial’s research publications open access policy (RPOAP) allows you to deposit the accepted manuscript with a CC BY license for notified publishers. The open access team will set this license for your deposit in Spiral via Symplectic. You can then add a CC BY license to your deposited manuscript in Europe PMC.
CC BY required on route 1 GOLD and route 3 GOLD.
Other requirements
CRUK-funded researchers are strongly encouraged to:
- Deposit preprints of their work en route to publication in a peer-reviewed journal
- Publish them under a CC-BY license on a platform that is indexed in Europe PMC