Open access funding

We will fund reasonable article processing charges (APCs) for research articles published in fully OA journals or platforms that are: 

• are indexed by Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) 
• have an agreement (Participation Agreements and Options or PMC) with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to deposit the Version of Record [PDF] in PMC and allow that content to be shared with Europe PMC. 

We do not cover the costs of open access publishing in subscription journals. Grant applicants cannot ask for these costs in their grant application, and grant holders will not be allowed to use their grant funds to pay for these costs. 

We also provide funds to support reasonable open access fees for monographs and book chapters.  

How you get this funding depends on the type of publication and whether the organisation in which you’re based receives open access block grant funding.

These organisations have a block award to cover open access publishing costs.

Each organisation has its own guide which can be accessed from the links below.

• Aberdeen University
• Babraham Institute
• Birmingham University
• Birkbeck College, University of London
• Bristol University
• Cambridge University
• Cardiff University
• Crick Institute
• Dundee University
• Durham University
• Edinburgh University
• Exeter University
• Glasgow University
• Institute of Cancer Research
• Imperial College London
• King’s College London
• Leeds University
• Leicester University
• Liverpool University
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Manchester University
• Newcastle University
• University of Nottingham
• Oxford University
• Queen Mary College, University of London
• Queen’s University of Belfast
• Sheffield University
• Sussex University
• University College London
• Warwick University
• York University

The funding can be used to cover: 

• Article Processing Charges (APCs) for original research articles published in fully open access journals or platforms  
• APCs for journals which have Transformative Journals status (until the end of December 2024) 
• From January 2021 to December 2024, to contribute towards the publishing element of Transformative 'read and publish' Agreements, such as Microbiology Society or Wiley. 
• Research/study protocols, systematic reviews, scoping reviews and meta-analyses. These written outputs are not included in our open access policy, but the funds can be used to cover APCs for these article types if they are: 
  • authored by Wellcome-funded researchers 
  • published in fully OA journals or platforms indexed by DOAJ.  

Read Wellcome's support for Open Access Publishing Models [PDF] for more information.

The block grant doesn't cover:

• other charges associated with publication, for example page and colour charges and non-open access publication fees
• open access fees associated with publishing book chapters and monographs.

In 2021/22 Wellcome awarded £7.2 million in open access block grants to 38 institutions. Of the individual articles reported to Wellcome, 92% complied with our Open Access policy at the time the analysis was conducted by OA.Report in August 2023.

Spending reviews for 2014 to 2022 are available on Figshare.

If you’re at an organisation that doesn’t receive open access funding, please email the following details to openaccess@wellcome.org:

• your current employing organisation
• title of the paper
• Wellcome grant reference number
• journal title
• proposed date of publication
• cost of the open access fee.

Email the following details to openaccess@wellcome.org:

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

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

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

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

The open access publication costs should be split proportionately in line with the funders’ relative contributions, where the research reported is:

• funded by more than one funding agency that mandates open access
• the funding agency provides funding for open access.

Organisations should charge the proportional costs to the appropriate funder.

If research funders don’t mandate open access, or if Wellcome is the lead funder on a piece of research, we’re willing to meet the full open access fee.

Updated in January 2024