Open access guidance for Wellcome Centres and Africa and Asia Programmes
This guidance sets out how we expect Wellcome Centres and Programmes to meet our open access policy, how authors should acknowlege our funding, and how open access funds can be used.
This guidance sets out how we expect Wellcome Centres and Africa and Asia Programmes to meet our open access policy, how authors should acknowledge our funding, and how open access funds can be used.
Our open access policy applies to all original peer-reviewed research papers, scholarly monographs and book chapters, where our funding has contributed to the research reported.
This specifically includes all papers, monographs and book chapters that:
- report research that has been funded, in whole or in part, through a Wellcome grant to the Centre or Programme, or through their core award (during the award or after the funding period has ended)
- on which a Wellcome Investigator Award holder, Wellcome Fellow or any other individual in receipt of salary support from Wellcome appears as a co-author during the period of their award (even where the specific research project is not funded by Wellcome)
- based on research conducted at the Centre or Programme supported through the core award, but which has itself been supported by one or more other funders.
Authors must list all the funders of the research and associated grant numbers in the Acknowledgements section of the paper, in line with our research publication acknowledgement practice.
Papers that don’t fall into any of the three categories above should not acknowledge Wellcome as a funder in the Acknowledgements section of the paper.
For research done at a Centre or Programme (for example, research that depends on resources supported via the core grant), papers should acknowledge Wellcome’s core support and quote the core grant number.
Examples of the wording to use:
Research conducted at a Centre or Programme that has been supported by a Wellcome Trust grant:
This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant number] etc [Programme/Centre name] is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust [Core grant number].
Research conducted at the Centre or Programme that has used resources supported by the core award, but has itself been supported by other funders.
This work was supported by funder 1 [grant number]; funder 2 [grant number], etc… [Programme/Centre name] is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust [Core grant number].
Wellcome-funded researchers based at a Centre or Programme, who have contributed to research conducted elsewhere, must make sure that their Wellcome funding is cited in line with our acknowledgement guidance.
The Centre or Programme must make sure that the provision of data, materials or technical assistance to external users is acknowledged in papers in line with best practice.
These papers would only be required to be published open access where a Wellcome-funded researcher at the Centre or Programme is named as a co-author.
UK Centres use the block grants provided to organisations for open access publishing costs.
The majority of our Africa and Asia Programmes receive funding specifically for open access publishing costs. Researchers based at the Africa Health Research Institute should email openaccess@wellcome.org for advice on how we will fund these costs.
Article Processing Charges (APCs) for papers should be split proportionately between the funders of the research in line with their relative contributions, as agreed by the paper’s authors.
Where Wellcome is the clear lead funder on a piece of research conducted at a Centre or Programme, we will meet the full cost of the APCs.
If there is no mechanism to claim APCs from the other funder, you can use Wellcome funds to cover these costs.
Where a researcher based at a Centre or Programme appears as a co-author on a paper, resulting from research that has been led by other institutions and primarily funded by others, we would expect the main funders of the research to meet the majority of any APCs, where funds are available.
Funds provided should be proportionate to the Centre or Programme’s contribution to the research. We would only expect to fund the full cost of the APC for these papers in exceptional circumstances.
To determine whether a journal has a compliant paid open access option, please use Journal Checker Tool.
Centres and Programmes are best placed to judge their contribution to a particular piece of research.
When you submit your publication lists and annual reports, please indicate any publications that you judge fall outside our open access policy.
Contact us if you have a question about open access.