Applying to the block grants
How to apply for an article processing charge (APC) from a block grant
If you receive funding from a specific funder, you may be able to apply for your article processing charge (APC) to be paid from a block grant.
Applications and payments for these block grants are managed by the University (not the funders).
Please note: If you are eligible, the Open Access Payments Team (OAPT) will request the invoice from the publisher and arrange payment from a block grant. This means departments should NOT pay the invoice and claim reimbursement.
Before you apply
Please note:
- Before you apply, please check the status of the fund, eligibility and other criteria.
- The date of publication or payment must fall within the current block grant year.
- These grants are from the specific funders listed below and are available only to authors who are already funded by them.
Funders with block grants at Oxford
Block fund criteria and fund status
Fund status: Open for applications
Block grant year: 1st April to 31st March
Eligibility
- Article processing charges (APCs) and charges via other types of funding models (e.g. membership fees) that support publication in fully open access journals and platforms.
- Publish elements of Jisc-approved transitional agreements.
- Open access fees in journals approved by Jisc as meeting the research sectors requirements for transition to OA.
- Costs associated with open access via 'route 2' of the policy, for example making the author’s accepted manuscript (or version of record, where the publisher permits) available in an institutional or subject repository at the time of final publication.
- Open access costs associated with articles in scope of and compliant with the RCUK policy i.e. submitted for publication before 1st April 2022.
What the block grant doesn’t cover
- The cost of hybrid open access publishing in subscription journals unless part of Jisc approved transitional agreements or in journals approved by Jisc as meeting the research sectors requirements for transition to OA.
- Other charges associated with publication, including page and colour charges, and non-open access publication charges and fees.
- Open access fees associated with monographs, book chapters and edited collections.
Criteria
See the UKRI policy page.
While the UK was not associated to Horizon Europe, UKRI, on behalf of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, have guaranteed funds awarded to researchers who have been successful at applying for a Horizon Europe grant.
Authors funded by the ‘Horizon Europe guarantee’ scheme are funded by UKRI but will need to follow the Horizon Europe open access policy. They are not eligible to apply for funding from the UKRI block grant and need to fund OA publication costs from their grant.
Researchers applying to Horizon Europe should include publication costs in their budgets so that they can comply with the Horizon Europe open access policy and use these funds to pay for OA publication costs.
Fund status: Open for applications
Block grant year: 1st October to 30th September
Eligibility
- Only peer-reviewed, original (primary) research articles are eligible.
- Research /study protocols, systemic reviews, scoping reviews and meta-analyses are not included in the Wellcome OA policy.
- However, costs can be covered if publishing in a fully open access journal/platform.
- Conference proceedings, editorials, letters or commentaries, book chapter and monographs and any other charges associated with publication, such as page and colour charges, are ineligible.
- We cannot support open access charges for hybrid journals which ask authors to agree to payment upon submission.
- Open access costs for book chapters and monographs can be requested from Wellcome.
Criteria
- A CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution) licence must be applied to articles.
- A CC BY-ND (Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives) licence may be applied as an exception. However, this must be approved by Wellcome before submission.
- Wellcome funding must be acknowledged within the article, including the grant reference number.
- A rights retention statement is required on all articles. This must be included in the journal submission.
- Immediate Europe PMC deposit is required upon print publication.
- Posting preprints of work is strongly advised.
Fund status: Open for applications
Block grant year: 1st October to 30th September
Eligibility
- Only original, peer-reviewed research articles are eligible.
- Meta-analyses are eligible.
- All open access and hybrid journals are eligible.
- Review papers, editorials, commentary, conference proceedings, book chapters and monographs are ineligible.
Criteria
- Articles must be published under a CC BY licence (Creative Commons Attribution Licence).
- CRUK funding must be acknowledged within the article.
- Immediate Europe PMC deposit is required upon print publication or version of record availability (online-only journals).
- Note: for articles accepted before 1st January 2022, availability in Europe PMC must be made within 6 months from publication.
Fund status: Open for applications
Block grant year: 1st October to 30th September
Eligibility
- Only peer-reviewed, primary research articles are eligible.
- Non-invited reviews are eligible.
- All open access and hybrid journals are eligible.
- Commissioned or invited review articles, conference proceedings, editorials, letters or commentaries and any other charges associated with publication, such as page and colour charges, are ineligible.
Criteria
- Articles must be published under a CC BY licence (Creative Commons Attribution Licence).
- BHF funding needs to be acknowledged within the article.
- For pure OA journals, immediate Europe PMC deposit upon print publication is required. For hybrid journals, a 6 month Europe PMC deposit is allowed.
If the BHF allocation for the year has been used, select a journal that allows the author to self-deposit in Europe PMC within 6 months of publication. More details are available on the funder website.
