Funders grant rules and funding

Funding rules can affect open access and this has implications for you and your research. You also need to acknowledge your funder and further down this page you’ll find a handy guide on to how to do this.

Not sure what your funder’s rules are with regard to open access?

Open Policy Finder lists funders’ rules and recommendations. Use the list to check whether a particular funder has an open access requirement for research outputs.

Does your funding come from one of the Research Councils, Wellcome or the CSO?

Details of their policies can be obtained from their websites:

• Wellcome
• UKRI open access policy
• CSO Open Access Policy

These policies apply to all grant holders from the CSO, Wellcome, AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, STFC, and Innovate UK.

Has your research received funding from the EU Horizon 2020 project?

• All projects receiving Horizon 2020 funding will be obliged to make sure any peer reviewed journal article they publish is openly accessible, free of charge. The open access policy is summarized in a brief factsheet.
• For open access details applicable to beneficiaries in projects funded under Horizon 2020, please see the Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data.
• Get some support from OpenAIRE

Have you acknowledged your funder?

The Research Information Network has developed a standard acknowledgement which is acceptable to all funders:

• The funding agency name should be written in full
• The grant number should be in square brackets
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma and space
• Funding agencies should be separated by a semi-colon.

E.g. “This work was supported by Wellcome [grant number], [grant number]; Medical Research Council [grant number]; and Cancer Research UK [grant number].”

If you don’t correctly acknowledge your funder, it can cause problems, such as making your article ineligible for open access funds from Wellcome Trust.

You can also include the funder and grant number when you deposit the item in the Edinburgh Napier Research Repository.