Q. Which licence option should I choose when I'm publishing a journal article?

Most journal publishers offer authors a range of licence options to choose from but the licence mandated by many funders is a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).This licence allows authors to take full credit for their work while allowing the greatest possible circulation. 

If the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund will be supporting the publishing fees, authors must select a CC BY licence in line with the University's Open Access Mandate. You must apply to the fund before submission, if an APC will be charged. Most UK publishers should offer CC BY, however, there are instances where a publisher may only permit a CC BY licence for articles acknowledging grant funding. Open Access will check the licence available to you when you complete the pre-submission form. However if you later discover that your publisher charges for open access, and does not offer a CC BY licence, please get in touch with Open Access for advice.

A CC BY Licence supports the widest possible access to publicly-funded research and maximises opportunities to generate research impact and influence, while ensuring that authors and institutions receive full credit for their work. They are commonly used by open access publishers as well as by publishers which offer both open access and subscription content. 

To check whether your selected journal or publisher will let you meet funder and REF open access requirements, you can use SHERPA-RoMEO, Sherpa-FACT and the Plan S Journal Checker Tool linked below.

The main licence options you may be offered include:

CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Papers published under a CC BY licence comply with REF (Research Excellence Framework) and UK research funders' open access policies. 

You will be required to make your publication available under a CC BY licence if your article acknowledges direct funding from a cOALition S (Plan S) funder, including UKRI, EU, Wellcome Trust and others. You may be able to meet this requirement by self-archiving the Accepted Manuscript in BURA using the University's Rights Retention Policy or by choosing a CC BY option to make it available on the publisher website. As this is subject to a charge, you must apply for APC funding before you submit your article for publication if you wish to comply via the publisher website.

A CC-BY licence allows the widest possible dissemination and re-use with author attribution, which supports the reach and influence of your work. To comply, your work should be immediately available online without restriction and no later than 1 month from acceptance. To check whether your chosen journal complies with funder policy, use the SHERPA-FACT tool and the Plan S Journal Checker Tool linked below. 

CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial Licence

Papers published under a CC BY-NC licence comply with REF2021 policy but do not comply with the terms and conditions of many public research grants, including UKRI, Wellcome Trust, EU and other Plan S funders. It is expected that outputs which do not meet open access funder requirements may not be eligible for submission to the next REF. 

Outputs made available under a CC BY-NC licence under the REF2021 policy are eligible for REF submission. In some circumstances, other open licences may meet the minimum requirements. Ask the Open Research and Rights team for advice if you're not sure how to comply with REF or your funder's requirements.

CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No-Derivatives Licence

This licence does not comply with research funder open access requirements. This is because it creates barriers to access and reuse, potentially limiting research innovation, impact and benefits of publicly funded research.

Articles published under this licence which acknowledge funding from a Plan S funder, including UKRI, EU, Wellcome Trust, are not eligible to access publishing funds made available to support the sharing of publicly funded research. Where a charge is made for open access publishing, the article must be made available under a CC BY licence.

CC BY-ND: Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivatives Licence

This licence may be compliant with REF or funder policy, subject to exceptions. These typically apply to creative works.  

Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA)

This is a traditional publishing agreement where you assign full copyright ownership and distribution rights of your article to your publisher. If your research is funded by UKRI, European Commission or other Plan S funders, authors and institutions in receipt of funds should follow the Rights Retention Strategy outlined in the web page Plan S and publishing your research below,  to make sure the final version is available on a publisher website under a CC BY licence, or you retain the right to make the final version available in the institutional repository, under a CC BY licence without embargo immediately on publication. 

If another publication venue is not suitable for the research, this is the only available option.  If you choose this option you should to check whether your chosen journal meets the following:

1. allows deposit of your final accepted manuscript in an institutional repository under a CC BY licence. This should be the final peer-reviewed version after corrections.
2. no embargo on the accepted manuscript so it is available immediately on first publication (early online)

If a journal doesn't offer compliant options, you may then wish to consider alternative venues. To check a journal's open access archiving and embargo policy use SHERPA/RoMEO and the SHERPA-FACT databases for compliance with research funder policy. You can also ask the Open Access team for advice.