Birmingham Newman University Open Access Policy

You should read the following guidance in conjunction with the sections on:

• General principles for all Birmingham Newman Researchers
• Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding

All staff on academic or research contracts must deposit any new publications in the following categories in the institutional repository:

• Original research articles
• Conference papers with an ISSN

You must also:

• Give Birmingham Newman University as your affiliation in all published outputs which result from research carried out at the institution.
• Ensure that any embargo period applied by your publisher complies with the REF2021 Open Access policy*, currently 12 months for panels A and B and 24 months for panels C and D. This is in addition to any Open Access requirements of any funders acknowledged, which may require no embargo. If there is anything that may prevent your publication being compliant with either your funder’s Open Access policy or the current REF OA requirements, you should notify the library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk and the Research Office at research@newman.ac.uk.
• Deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) within 3 months from the date of acceptance using the online form. Alternatively, for Gold Open Access publications, you may submit the Version of Record (VoR) providing you can do this within the same 3 month timescale. If your research is funded, you may need to deposit immediately on acceptance.
• Apply the most open licence to the AAM that your publisher will allow. If your work is funded, you must apply the licence required by your funding body.

You are also encouraged to deposit other reserach outputs as listed below. You are not required to deposit work carried out at your previous institution(s).

Birmingham Newman University may be able to support you to make your outputs Open Access via the Gold route. See Publishing Open Access for more information about the options available. If your work is externally funded, see Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding for more guidance.

*You should continue to comply with the REF2021 policy until the outcome of the Future Research Assessment Programme and the announcement of any new Open Access policy by Research England.

You should read the following guidance in conjunction with the sections on:

• General principles for all Birmingham Newman Researchers
• Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding

If you are also employed on an academic contract, see Birmingham Newman staff on academic or research contracts.

Postgraduate Research (PGR) students who are not employed on academic contracts are still strongly encouraged to deposit any new publications in the following categories in the institutional repository:

• Original research articles
• Conference papers with an ISSN

You should deposit either the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or, for Gold Open Access publications, the Version of Record (VoR) under the most open licence your publisher will allow. See Birmingham Newman staff on academic or research contracts for more information.

You may also want to consider depositing other reserach outputs as listed below. You are not required to deposit work carried out at your previous institution(s).

Birmingham Newman University may be able to support you to make your outputs Open Access via the Gold route. See Publishing Open Access for more information about the options available. If your work is externally funded, see Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding.

You should read the following guidance in conjunction with the sections on:

• General principles for all Birmingham Newman Researchers
• Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding

If you would like to share your research openly you may be eligible to deposit in Birmingham Newman University’s Repository, please contact the library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk to discuss your publication.

If you are looking to make your work Open Access via the Gold route, you should contact the Library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk before submitting your publication. If your work is externally funded, see Birmingham Newman researchers in receipt of external funding.

You should read the following guidance in conjunction with the sections on:

• General principles for all Birmingham Newman Researchers
• Birmingham Newman staff on academic or research contracts
• Postgraduate research students
• Honorary, visiting and Emeritus staff, professional staff and students on taught courses

Where your research has been funded you must comply with all requirements of your funder’s Open Access policy. If you are acknowledging more than one funding body, you must meet the requirements of all policies that apply.

Failure to comply with funder Open Access policies may impact on the University’s ability to secure future funding. If there is anything that may prevent your publication complying with your funder’s Open Access policy you must notify the library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk and the Research Office at research@newman.ac.uk as soon as possible.

Where you publish is a decision you may need to make early on in the research process. Many major funders no longer allow grant funding to be used to pay for article processing charges (APCs) in hybrid journals. If your funder is a signatory to Plan 'S', and you are publishing via the Gold route to Open Access, you will be required to publish your article in a fully OA journal, a Transformative Journal or under a Transformative Agreement.

Your funder may also allow you to comply with their policy by self-archiving your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)and this may be your only option if, for example, there is no Open Access funding available, or your chosen journal does not offer a suitable Gold route. If you are relying on the Green Route for compliance, you must ensure that your journal’s self-archiving policy meets your funder’s OA requirements. If they are a signatory to Plan 'S', you will need to make your AAM immediately available Open Access in a compliant repository under a Creative Commons CC BY licence and include a Rights Retention Statement (RRS). Please be aware that your publisher is under no obligation to accept these terms and may choose to reject your submission. If you need to include an RRS in your publication, you may wish to discuss this with the Library before submitting your manuscript.

The policies for the major UK funding bodies are linked below:

• UKRI, includes all UK Research Councils (AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC and Innovate UK)
• Wellcome Trust
• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR)
• Medical research charities: Alzheimer’s Research UK, Blood Cancer UK, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Parkinson’s UK and Versus Arthritis

If your funder is not listed, you should check whether they have an Open Access policy in place and make sure you are aware of any OA requirements. You can do this using Jisc’s Sherpa Juliet service.

3.5.1. What do I need to do?

You must do the following before you submit your manuscript:

• Ensure that your chosen journal or publisher will allow you to comply with the Open Access policies of all funders acknowledged in your publication. You should check this using the Journal Checker Tool and the Jisc-Approved Transformative Journal List.
• Check whether any of the Library’s Transformative agreements will allow you to publish Gold Open Access at no additional cost. You are advised to contact the Library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk to confirm that there are no restrictions or limits on the agreement that might mean it would not be available to you at the point of acceptance / publication (e.g. an article cap or restriction on article type).
• If no Transformative Agreement is in place, but you still wish to publish via the Gold route, you must confirm that your funder will cover Open Access publishing costs under the terms of your grant or via another mechanism (e.g. a direct payment to the publisher). If you are unsure, contact your funder for more guidance. If you are planning to publish in an Open Access journal and your funder will not cover the cost, contact the library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk.
• If you intend to make your work Open Access via the Green route, you must confirm that the publisher is able to meet the criteria for Green OA laid down by your funder, including complying with any Rights Retention policies. If they cannot do this, you must not submit your publication to that publisher unless you have received explicit permission from your funder. If you are unsure, you can seek further guidance from the Library at openaccess@newman.ac.uk.
• Choose a licence that meets the requirements of all funders acknowledged, in most cases this will be Creative Commons CC BY. Some funders allow more restrictive licences to be applied in specific circumstances. If you need to apply a more restrictive licence you must make sure that you have your funder’s permission to do this.

You should also check your funder’s requirements for sharing your underlying research data. In all cases, you should include a statement explaining how the data can be accessed.

It may be possible to deposit other forms of publication into the institutional repository. You are particularly encouraged to consider depositing the following, where your publisher allows:

• Monographs
• Book chapters and book sections
• Conference proceedings with an ISBN
• Theses undertaken at Birmingham Newman and awarded by a Birmingham Newman validation partner

The following outputs fall outside of the scope of this policy, however, these may be accepted where there is a funder requirement to make the output available Open Access.

• Pre-prints
• Theses not undertaken at Birmingham Newman and awarded by a Birmingham Newman validation partner
• Edited collections where the editors, rather than the contributors, are based at Birmingham Newman
• Other long-form publication with an ISBN or DOI
• Reports
• Book reviews, editorials and other invited articles
• Creative outputs such as creative writing, theatre performances, audio-visual materials and artistic works

Outputs which are eligible for REF2029 will still be given priority over other research outputs