Block grants

If you receive funding from UKRI, Wellcome, British Heart Foundation or Cancer Research UK, 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 administered by the University.

Block grants are finite resources. We endeavour to cover all eligible applicants through block grants, but it is not guaranteed. Only when an application has been approved via the Open Access Payment system are funds committed

Please apply to the block grant as soon as your paper has been accepted by the journal and wait for confirmation from the Bodleian Libraries team. Any delay may result in your application not being processed.

Before you apply

  1. Before you apply, please check the eligibility and other criteria below.
  2. Make sure you apply as soon as possible after your paper is accepted .
  3. These grants are from the specific funders listed below, they are only available to authors if the output is a direct result of that funding.
  4. The grants only support open access publishing of journal articles. 

Conditions for applying for block grants 

Funder Conditions
UKRI Hybrid journals not covered; colour page charges not covered; other non-open access fees not covered; CC BY licence mandatory; Medical Research Council and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council funded articles must be deposited in Europe PMC repository
Wellcome Hybrid not covered. If the research article reports original Wellcome-funded research, it can be covered. All journals must appear in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); page and colour charges not covered; rights retention statement required; CC BY licence required (CC BY ND can be applied as an exception); article must be deposited in Europe PMC repository
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Hybrid journals are allowed; only original articles can be covered (narrative reviews, editorials, commentary, and conference proceedings not eligible); article must be deposited in Europe PMC repository; CC BY licence mandatory. See current status for more information.
British Heart Foundation Hybrid journals are allowed; only original articles are eligible (reviews, editorials, commentary, and conference proceedings not covered); CC BY licence mandatory; article must be deposited in Europe PMC repository

CRUK open access block grant: current status

The current CRUK block grant is now fully committed.

The CRUK are still consulting on open access block grant budget allocations. As a result, the end date for our current award has been extended. We expect an update on new funds in March.

CRUK has advised that, during this interim period, all CRUK authors should use any unspent grant funds to support open access charges. Where this is not possible, for hybrid (green) journals the author is asked to deposit their article in ORA and thus ensure compliance by self-deposit. For pure (gold) open access journals, authors are strongly encouraged to find other sources of funding to cover open access charges or to review other options in line with CRUK policy.

We are exploring options for those gold open access cases where no other funding sources or alternative options are available. Please contact oapayments@bodleian.ox.ac.uk for more information.

Last updated: 14 January 2026

Apply to the block grant

To apply for the block grant please complete our online form (requires a VPN connection and an SSO).

Apply to the block grant

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.

Contact us

If you have a query about block grant payments, please contact the Open Access Payments Team at oapayments@bodleian.ox.ac.uk