Open access policies

The author accepted manuscript of all peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings must be deposited in, or be made available through, LJMU Research Online.

Final approved versions of PhD and MPhil theses, awarded by LJMU, should be deposited in accordance with the Policy and Procedures for the Examination of Research Degrees (opens in a new tab).

Deposit of other types of output (including but not limited to book chapters, monographs, reports, artistic creations, compositions, exhibitions, etc.) is encouraged.

All authors of research outputs including academics, researchers, administrative staff and postgraduate research students where outputs are accepted for publication on or after the date at which they joined the University.

Deposit the author accepted manuscript of applicable research outputs via  Symplectic, within 3 months of acceptance. This will then be made available in the LJMU Research Online.

Deposit final approved version of PhD and MPhil theses, awarded by LJMU, in accordance with the Policy and Procedures for the Examination of Research Degrees. 

Research articles made available Open Access immediately on publication. This should be the published version (Version of Record).

The Version of Record must have a CC-BY or Open Government Licence. For more details on licensing see the UKRI policy page.

Where possible you should make use of our institutional open access agreements to make your work open access on publication. Where an institutional deal is not available you may apply for Block Grant funding (see details below of how to apply). Page charges and colour charges will not be funded.

Publications acknowledging BBSRC or MRC funding must be made available in EMPC by the official publication date.

To request an APC payment, please email the Library Researcher Engagement Team before submitting your paper. Please include the following details in your email:

• Title of journal or conference proceedings
• Full article title
• Details of which strand of UKRI support the project from which the output arose: AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC or STFC
• The appropriate finance (“R”) cost-centre code(s) of the support project

These details will be checked, and you will be informed via email of the outcome of your request.

Payment of APC depends on degree to which your publishing outlet complies with you UKRI Open Access requirements and the availability of APC funds within the University.

The Author Accepted Manuscript must be made available in a subject or institutional repository within one month of publication. Please contact us when you have deposited a UKRI paper to the repository so we can ensure all compliance steps are adhered to.

The Author Accepted Manuscript must have a CC-BY or Open Government Licence. A CC-BY-ND licence may be permitted, approval must be sought from UKRI.

Where a CC-BY licence will be added to an Author Accepted Manuscript the following text must be included at the point of submission.

For the purpose of open access, the author(s) has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence (where permitted by UKRI, ‘Open Government Licence’ or ‘Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence’ may be stated instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising’

Publications acknowledging BBSRC or MRC funding must be made available in EMPC by the official publication date.

The final Version of Record must be free to view and download via publishers’ website with a Creative Commons attribution (CCBY) licence or other licence permitted by UKRI. This should include where possible any images, illustrations, table and other supporting content.

There is funding available from UKRI to support open access publishing directly with publishers via a Book Processing Charge model (BPC) up to £10,000 (incl. VAT). The is a two stage process to apply for this funding and in the first instance you should complete the Stage 1 form (link to form once set up), which will be processed by the Researcher Engagement Team. This should be done before a publishing contract is signed.

There are a number of publishers that offer a different model of immediate open access publishing where a BPC isn’t payable, for example Open Book Publishers. Please contact the Researcher Engagement Team to explore your options.

The Author’s Accepted Manuscript is deposited to an institutional or subject repository within 12 months of publication. This version should have a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) licence or other licence permitted by UKRI. This should include where possible any images, illustrations, table and other supporting content.

It should be clear that this is not the final published version. Please check your publishers permissions with regards to depositing your Author Accepted Manuscript and contact us when you deposit to the repository so we can ensure all compliance steps are adhered to.

In scope: Peer-reviewed research articles with NIHR funding, submitted for publication after 1 June 2022.

Out of scope: Longform research, monographs, book chapters and edited collections.

Immediate OA, CC-BY licence, data access statement, NIHR acknowledgement.

Research articles must be made available Open Access immediately on publication. The Version of Record (published version) or Author Accepted Manuscript must be made available in PMC or EPMC by the official publication date. It must have a CCBY or Open Government Licence

Research undertaken within the Global Heath Research Portfolio, NIHR encourage the use of EMPC, but recognise that other repositories may be more appropriate.

NIHR encourage use of institutional read and publish deals available to them (see details of LJMU institutional open access agreements). Where Article Processing Charges are not covered locally you may be able to request additional funds from NIHR, details are available on the NIHR policy web page under Principle 4.

In scope articles must include a Data Access Statement even where there is no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.