Open access funding and deals
Guidance on open access funding and deals, including information about options and eligibility
Overview
Some publishers charge a fee to make a research article, monograph or book chapter open access.
Article Processing Charges (APCs) can vary, but an average APC is just over £2000. Book Processing Charges (BPCs) are more expensive, often between £8000 and £12,000.
The Library administers block grants from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Wellcome Trust and British Heart Foundation, and if you acknowledge funding from these organisations you may be eligible to apply to us to cover open access charges.
Other funders may allow you to cost in open access charges as part of your grant application. If you do not have access to open access funding, you may be eligible to apply to the University of Sheffield Institutional Open Access Fund.
We also have a growing number of publisher agreements which allow University of Sheffield corresponding authors to make their articles open access at no direct cost to themselves.
Information about these options can be found in the sections below.
The grants that we administer are limited and only available in certain circumstances. Always contact OAEnquiries@sheffield.ac.uk before committing to any paid open access options offered by a publisher.
Invoices that have not been authorised in advance will remain the responsibility of the author for payment.
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
UKRI provides University of Sheffield with an open access block grant which can be used to pay for APCs for peer reviewed research and review articles in the following circumstances:
- If the article is published in a fully open access journal or platform.
- If the article is published in a Jisc-approved transformative journal.
In order to be eligible for funding, at least one of the authors must be a current student or employee of the University of Sheffield, and funded by UKRI.
The relevant funding, including grant code must be acknowledged on the paper, and the article must be published with a CC BY licence (unless you have applied for a CC BY-ND exception from UKRI).
If the journal is not fully open access or a Jisc-approved transformative journal, you may be able to make your article open access as part of a transitional agreement, or deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript into our repository.
UKRI will not pay for other charges associated with publication, such as page and colour charges.
More information about complying with the UKRI open access policy
Wellcome Trust
Wellcome provides the University with an open access block grant which can be used to pay for Article Processing Charges for original peer reviewed research articles in the following circumstances:
- If the article is published in a fully open access journal or platform.
- If the article is published in a Plan S-approved transformative journal (check using the Journal Checker Tool).
In order to be eligible for funding, at least one of the authors must be a current student or employee of the University of Sheffield, and funded by Wellcome.
The relevant funding, including grant code must be acknowledged on the paper, and the article must be published with a CC BY licence (unless you have applied for a CC BY-ND exception from Wellcome).
If the journal is not fully open access or a Plan S-approved transformative journal, you may be able to make your article open access as part of a transitional agreement, or deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript into Europe PMC.
Wellcome will not pay for APCs associated with other article types such as reviews and editorials, or any other charges associated with publication, such as page and colour charges.
More information about complying with the Wellcome open access policy
British Heart Foundation
British Heart Foundation provides the University with an open access block grant which can be used to pay for Article Processing Charges.
In order to be eligible for funding, at least one of the authors must be a current student or employee of the University of Sheffield, and funded by BHF.
The relevant funding, including grant code must be acknowledged on the paper, and the article must be published with a CC BY licence.
BHF will not pay for APCs associated with commissioned or invited review articles, conference proceedings, editorials, letters or commentaries and any other charges associated with publication, such as page and colour charges.
University of Sheffield Institutional Open Access Fund
An institutional open access fund has been established as a pilot project to support University of Sheffield researchers who do not have access to funds to cover the cost of open access publishing.
Current staff members and PGRs are welcome to apply to the fund to cover reasonable APCs in fully open access journals, or monographs and chapters published with fully open access presses or presses demonstrating a commitment to sustainable open access publishing.
More information about the fund, including eligibility criteria and application forms
Costing open access charges into your grant application
Some research funders allow you to cost open access charges into your grant applications. Please check individual funder websites for more information on this.
If you wish to find the cost of APCs for particular journals, you can usually find the information on publisher websites, or use a standard cost of £2200 + VAT.
Be aware that some publishers charge much more than average, with Springer Nature charging as much as EUR 9500 per article for their most expensive journals.
If you are costing in open access charges for a monograph, please check with individual publishers.
When costing open access charges into your grant application, it is worth checking whether the funds will only be available for the duration of the grant, or whether you will be able to claim them after the grant has ended.
Other gold open access options
The University of Sheffield have a growing number of ‘transitional agreements’ with publishers which allow Sheffield-affiliated corresponding authors to make their articles open access at no direct cost to themselves.
See our list of transitional agreements and other deals.
Many open access journals do not charge APCs, and you can search for these using the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
The University of Sheffield Library is committed to supporting different models of open access publishing, and financially contributes to non-APC initiatives such as the Open Library of the Humanities and Open Book Publishers.
International Merit Scholarships
We offer a generous package of financial support for international students including 75 undergraduate scholarships worth £10,000 towards the annual tuition fee and 125 postgraduate taught scholarships worth £5,000 towards the tuition fee. Applications are now open for existing offer holders.