Funding and policies

UKRI's policy requirements for monographs and long-form publications are

1. The Author’s Accepted Manuscript or the final Version of Record must be free to view and download from an online publication platform, publishers’ website, or institutional or subject repository within a maximum of 12 months from publication.
2. The open access version must have a Creative Commons licence that allows the reader to search for and reuse content, subject to proper attribution. A Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence is preferred, as that provides the greatest opportunity for sharing and reuse, but other Creative Commons licences are permitted.
3. The open access version should include, where possible, any images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content.

The UKRI policy does not apply to the following long-form outputs:

• trade books, unless they are the only output from UKRI-funded research
• scholarly editions. Defined as an edition of another author’s original work or body of works informed by critical evaluation of the sources (such as earlier manuscripts, texts, documents and letters), often with a scholarly introduction and explanatory notes or analysis on the text and/or original author.
• textbooks
• exhibition catalogues
• scholarly illustrated catalogues
• all types of fictional works and creative writing.

Other forms of UKRI-funded monographs will be exempt if:

• you signed a contract before 1 January 2024 that prevents compliance with the policy.
• the output is from a UKRI training grant.
• there is only one appropriate publisher, who is unable to offer an open access option that complies with the policy. UKRI will expect you to have considered other options and have liaised with the publisher to find an open access option.
• you cannot obtain reuse permissions for third party materials and there is no suitable alternative option available. These materials can be published with a more restrictive licence or on an “All Rights Reserved” basis.
• a monograph, book chapter, or edited collection is published seven or more years after the formal end of a UKRI funded project.

There is a central UKRI fund to support open access costs associated with long form publications.

The maximum levels of funding that UKRI will contribute towards the cost of publishing open access are:

• £10,000 (including VAT) for entire monographs and edited collections
• £1,000 (including VAT) for book chapters
• £6,000 for non-book processing charge models where one eligible UKRI output is published (note these models are also referred to as diamond models, collective models, or subscribe to open models).

Complete the monograph funding application form.

The application process is managed by the Library on behalf of authors at the University of Leeds.

UKRI manages its central fund in two stages:

1. The Library registers your long-form output with the UKRI. UKRI reviews the application and confirms if a publication is eligible for funding.
   You do not need a publishing contract at this stage.
2. the Library provides UKRI with the final confirmation of publication, which will release the funds.

Information required in the application form

The following information is required to apply for and receive funding. Successful applications will need to demonstrate a substantial link between the publication and UKRI research funding, as well as between the author and UKRI research funding.

Prior to publishing (stage 1):

• Name of research organisation
• UKRI funding reference
• Author name(s)
• Title of publication
• Name of publisher
• Estimated cost (if known)
• Statement about relationship of the output to the UKRI funded project or grant, including the authors role in this.

After funding eligibility is confirmed and post-publication (stage 2):

• Date of publication
• Confirmation of open access publication
• Financial information
• Any changes to the information provided at stage 1.

If you have any questions, please contact the Research Services Team. 

All original scholarly monographs and book chapters authored or co-authored by Wellcome grantholders as part of their grant-funded research, must be:

• made freely available from NCBI Bookshelf and Europe PMC as soon as possible and at the latest within 6 months of the official final publication date
• available without embargo and published under a Creative Commons licence, where a fee has been paid to the publisher to make the work open access.

The strongly preferred licence is a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY). However, where there are concerns around the creation of derivative works, authors may publish their work under other Creative Commons licences including non-commercial (CC BY-NC) and non-derivative licences (CC BY-NC-ND).

The Wellcome open access policy does not apply to:

• textbooks
• ‘trade’ books
• general reference works
• works of fiction
• collections edited, but not authored, by Wellcome grantholders.

To request open access funding for monographs and book chapters, email Wellcome with the following information:

• your current employing organisation
• title of the monograph or book chapter
• Wellcome grant reference number
• publisher name
• proposed date of publication
• cost of the open access fee.

Wellcome will supplement your research grant and the University will be able to claim reimbursement for these additional costs in the usual way.

You can’t use this funding to cover any non-open access publication costs, including page or colour charges.

Wellcome will also provide open access funding when a research grant has ended.