Make my work open access

The gold option allows open access to the published paper via the journal's own website at the time of online publication. This either involves a one-off charge (an article-processing charge), or taking advantage of one of the deals listed below.

Please note that there is no central fund to support article processing charges (APCs).

Publisher-specific deals on gold open access

The agreements below have been negotiated through our national negotiating body JISC. Inclusion on this list does not necessarily constitute a recommendation by UWE to submit articles to these publishers. This area involves complicated and evolving issues. Discussion on this topic can be found on the library research support blog.

To take advantage of these deals, you must:

• Be the corresponding author
• Identify UWE Bristol as your affiliated institution (usually by using your UWE Bristol e-mail address) when submitting your journal article
• Have carried out the research at UWE Bristol, or with strong UWE Bristol involvement.

For a fully up-to-date list of all current deals please see our Open Access reading list, or contact the Library Research team for more information.

• American Chemical Society (ACS) - articles can be made open access for free.
• American Psychological Association (APA) - PsycArticles (not all journal titles) can be made open access for free.
• BMJ - articles in the BMJ standard collection can be made open access for free.
• Cambridge University Press (CUP) - most articles can be made open access for free.
• Elsevier - many articles (not all journal titles) can be made open access for free. A list of eligible journals can be found on the Elsevier/JISC agreement webpages. 15% discount on fully open access journals for authors with funding.
• Frontiers - have a prepayment deal, which includes a 10% discount, available to UKRI funded authors.
• International Water Association (IWA) - articles can be made open access for free.
• John Benjamins - articles in selected journals can be made open access for free.
• MDPI - provide a 20% discount on APCs where no other discount has been applied.
• Open Library of the Humanities - offers UWE Bristol authors free open access publishing in their hosted journals.
• Oxford University Press (OUP) - articles can be made open access for free.
• Public Library of Science (PLOS) - articles in seven PLOS journals, including PLOS ONE, can be made open access for free.
• Royal Society - membership between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2024 provides a 25% discount on APCs.
• Sage - many articles (not all journal titles), as listed in the SAGE Choice Scheme, can be made open access for free. 20% discount on fully open access journals for authors with funding.
• Springer - many journals (not all titles), as linked to from the Springer Open Choice webpage, can be made open access for free. 15% discount on fully open access journals for authors with funding.
• Taylor & Francis - many journals (not all titles, as linked to from the Open Select webpage) can be made open access for free.
• Wiley - most articles can be made open access.

The details of these APC payment deals vary from publisher to publisher. A list of open access journals you can publish in for free is available on the staff intranet open access publishing guide (staff log in required). Alternatively, please contact the Library Research team for a copy, or for more information. If none of these deals are suitable, you may be able to apply for funding if you are a Research Council (UKRI) grant holder, or are a member of CATE.

Apply for funding

Before submitting a journal article or conference paper for publication, ensure funds are available, either from your grant, your college or the library if you are RCUK funded.

If you are a Research Council (UKRI) grant holder, or are a member of CATE, you can apply for funding by completing the APC payment application form (DOC). Applications to all funds should be made by the corresponding UWE Bristol author prior to submission of the article.

The policy for UKRI block grant applications:

Please contact lib.rke@uwe.ac.uk for advice on how to proceed before submission.

There is a limited amount of funding available for articles resulting from UKRI-funded projects. Funds are usually only available for UKRI-funded publications which meet the following criteria:

1. The article is to be published in a pure Gold Open Access journal (i.e. the journal does not charge a subscription fee and is freely available online to all) and is listed in the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).

OR

2. The article is to be published in a JISC approved transformative journal which UWE Bristol does not have an agreement with and therefore an APC is payable. Please contact lib.rke@uwe.ac.uk before submission to check compliance with UKRI policy.

If you wish to make your work fully open access, please complete the application form and email lib.rke@uwe.ac.uk.

The policy for the CATE open-access fund

An application should be made by the corresponding UWE Bristol author prior to submission of the article. Having an article accepted for publication in an open-access journal is not sufficient reason that the APC should be paid. Authors will need to supply a copy of their article for review. Final judgement of applications will be made by the Associate Dean and Director of Research using the following criteria:

• Is the article a high quality contribution to knowledge?
• Is there a potential UWE Bristol impact case study to which the availability of knowledge in the article could contribute?
• Is there a significant likelihood that timely availability of the article in open-access form could help advance towards and realise (further) impact?

Full details of the scheme are available to download: CATE open access APC scheme criteria (PDF).

The green option allows you to publish the version of the research paper that was accepted for publication, via the UWE Bristol Research Repository, either immediately or after a specified embargo period.

Unless you have funding from UKRI, or are taking advantage of one of the publisher-specific deals, you are encouraged to choose the green open-access option as there is no central fund to support article-processing charges.

The green route also facilitates compliance with Research England's policy for REF 2021.

See the UWE Bristol Research Repository for more information on how to deposit your research.