Birmingham Newman University Open Access Policy

Not all publishers will charge you to make your publication Open Access, however in most cases an Article Processing Charge (APC) or Book Processing Charge (BPC) will apply. As a Birmingham Newman Researcher there are two main options available to you if you wish to publish your work via the Gold route at no cost to you.

The University has a number of Transformative agreements with publishers which allow researchers to make their work available Open Access in selected journals without the need to pay an APC. Only original research and review articles will be supported and the main corresponding author must be affiliated with Birmingham Newman University.

The agreements are negotiated on behalf of UK Universities by Jisc and are not specific to Birmingham Newman University. Each agreement has its own terms and conditions and the sector has developed community guidelines to ensure that these are administered as consistently as possible. We will prioritise requests to participate in Transformative agreements as follows

1. Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding. At certain times of the year these agreements may only be available to funded researchers.
2. Birmingham Newman staff on academic or research contracts.
3. Postgraduate research students will be supported to publish Open Access under transformative agreements wherever possible.
4. Honorary, visiting and Emeritus staff, professional staff and students on taught courses will not normally be eligible to publish Open Access under Birmingham Newman University transformative agreements. However, there are some circumstances under which these requests may be approved, including potential submission to REF2029. If you would like to discuss your eligibility, please contact the library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk.

You can find out more about the current agreements and how to apply by visiting the library’s guide for Researchers. You must check that you are eligible for an agreement before submitting your manuscript otherwise your publisher may invoice you personally for the cost of the Article Processing Charge.

There may be support available for Birmingham Newman Researchers who are publishing in fully Gold Open Access journals and who are not eligible for funding via any other route. Priority will be given to papers which meet the eligibility criteria for REF2029.

To apply for funding, you will need to complete the Open Access Funding application form and send the complete form to research@newman.ac.uk.

There is currently no support available for publishing Open Access books via the Gold route. You may be able to make some or all of your publication available by the Green route if your publisher permits this.