How to publish journal articles through open access
Transformative / Read and publish OA publishing deals
The University has signed transformative ('Read and Publish') agreements to enable corresponding authors from the University to publish eligible research articles open access for no extra cost. These deals, subscribed to by the Library, allow you to access and read content, as well as publish through gold open access. You do not need to apply through the University.
Eligibility Criteria
To qualify for any of the deals offered by the publishers below, these criteria apply:
- You must be the corresponding author who is affiliated with the University of Westminster at the point of acceptance
- You must be a current staff member or student
- The article type must be covered under the deal (Check individual publisher criteria for more information on which types are included)
- You are advised to use your institutional email address instead of your private email address, to enable the publisher to better identify you as eligible under the agreement
- Give the organisation name, University of Westminster, as your affiliation
- Many of these publishers only include hybrid journals. A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. Fully open (gold open access) journals are often excluded. Check journal title lists from each publisher to establish which are included.
- Any additional costs, such as submission fees, or page and colour charges are not included, and cannot be paid from open access funds.
Authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish original research articles in 88 hybrid journals in the PsycArticles portfolio, including 15 Hogrefe scientific journals in the fields of psychology and mental health.
This agreement is due to end on 31 July 2026, unless a new agreement is signed by the University.
Only research articles are included. Editorials, book reviews, obituaries and interviews are not.
All articles with a Westminster corresponding author will automatically be made open access with a CC-BY licence, and deposited in PubMed Central.
Further information, including eligible journal information, is available from the publisher.
ACM OPEN enables all corresponding authors affiliated with our institution to publish scholarly articles with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) on a completely open access basis without needing to pay any individual article processing charges (APCs).
All research articles, conference proceedings and magazines with a corresponding author from the University of Westminster are made OA upon publication, with the corresponding author being given the option of selecting a CC-BY licence for article sharing and reuse.
Following transmission of the manuscript to ACM production, the corresponding author will be asked to complete the assignment of rights and permissions on the eRights form. It is on this form that the corresponding author may select the rights to be granted and their choice of Creative Commons license.
The corresponding author designation must be made in the conference or journal submission system and the corresponding author must include their primary affiliation and use their institutional email address.
This agreement is effective until the end of December 2028.
Further information, including eligible journal information, is available from the publisher.
Authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish their research articles, review articles and rapid communications Open Access (OA) at no further charge to the author in Cambridge University Press. Fully open (gold open access) and hybrid journals are included. A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access.
Articles must be original research – eligible article types are research articles, review articles and rapid communications (RRR), plus brief reports and case reports.
This agreement is effective until the end of December 2029.
Further information on eligible journals is available from the publisher.
Authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish original research articles in any of Elsevier’s hybrid journals at no further charge to the author. This includes Cell Press and The Lancet.
This only applies to hybrid journals. A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. Fully gold journals (those that only charge open access publishing fees, and not subscriptions) are not included in this agreement.
Research and Review articles are covered. Case Reports / Data in Brief / Microarticle / Original Software Publication / Protocol / Replication Study / Short Communication / Short Survey / Video Article / Practice Guideline / Registered Report Article / Registered Report Protocol are all included.
This agreement is effective until the end of December 2028.
Find a participating journal in this agreement by title or by subject area.
How does the process work?
The process of publishing under the agreement is straightforward:
- Step 1 – Once the journal accepts your article, you will receive an email containing a link to the “post acceptance author journey”.
- Step 2 – You will be asked to review your affiliation and funder details. Based on this information, you will see personalised publishing options including the option to publish under the agreement.
- Step 3 – You will confirm your publishing choices and complete the post acceptance journey.
- Step 4 – Your institution will validate your eligibility for the agreement
- Step 5 – When publishing in subscription (hybrid) journals, you and your co-authors will receive an email to confirm that the APC will be covered by the agreement.
Corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish their articles through Gold Open Access in select PLOS journals, without having to pay open access, or APC fees. This is because, as a university, we have entered into an agreement with PLOS, covering the cost of publishing in PLOS ONE and any of the community journals listed below:
- PLOS Genetics
- PLOS Pathogens
- PLOS Computational Biology
- PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
- PLOS Climate
- PLOS Digital Health
- PLOS Global Public Health
- PLOS ONE
- PLOS Sustainability and Transformation
- PLOS Water
PLOS Medicine and PLOS Biology are NOT covered by this agreement.
More information on the PLOS Flat Fee Agreement is available.
Corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish their articles through Gold Open Access in 1000+ subscription journals in the current SAGE Premier package, the IMechE Journal Collection and the Royal Society of Medicine Collection. This only covers the hybrid journals in these lists and not the fully gold open access journals. A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access.
Original research papers, review papers, brief communications, short reports and case studies are included in the agreement. Book reviews, editorials, abstracts and news items are excluded.
Sage will inform all co-authors that the article can be published open access at no additional cost. Within 14 days, one author must confirm that the authors agree to publish open access, and choose a licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC). If the funder of the paper requires CC BY, ensure that you choose it.
See the Sage Agreement for more details and to check which journals are included.
This agreement is effective until the end of December 2028.
Corresponding authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish their articles open access with fees covered in hybrid journals. The agreement includes publishing in more than 2,000 journals across the Springer Nature portfolio, including Nature, Nature Research journals and Palgrave journals. This only applies to hybrid journals. A hybrid journal is a subscription journal in which some of the articles are open access. Fully gold journals (those that only charge open access publishing fees, and not subscriptions) are not included in this agreement.
The article must be published in either Springer and Palgrave journals on Springer Nature Link, or Academic journals on Nature.com.
The permitted output types for Springer articles include original research and review articles, brief communications and continuing education articles.
The permitted output types for Nature articles include research articles and original papers that may also be referred to as analysis, brief communications, registered reports and technical reports.
Not all journals are included in this agreement. The journals included are detailed in these lists:
- Springer and Palgrave journals on Springer Nature Link, and Academic journals on Nature.com.
- OA publications in Nature and Nature Research journals on Nature.com
See the Open access agreement for the UK for more detail.
Authors affiliated with the University of Westminster are eligible to publish open access in both hybrid and fully open (gold) journals at no cost to themselves in most Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. The agreement additionally includes F1000 Research, MedEdPublish and Routledge Open Research. A hybrid journal is one that accepts articles through a subscription model as well as offering an open access option.
Dove Press and the Expert Medicine series titles are excluded from this agreement.
Original research articles are included. Other types of paper, such as editorials, announcements, and book reviews, are not covered by this agreement.
This agreement is effective until the end of December 2028.
What are the steps to publish my research open access under this agreement?
- After submitting your article to an Open Selector fully open access journal and once it is accepted for publication post peer review, you will receive an email asking you to complete your publishing agreement. Please choose to be funded through your open access agreement, which you will see as you move through the process.
- Once you sign the agreement, your institution will be notified of your request, and we will approve it.
- If your request is not approved, you have the option to either fund the article publishing charge through a different source or publish as a subscription article, which does not require any payment.
- When submitting to an open access journal, if your article meets the agreement’s terms, you will be notified during the submission process.
See Taylor & Francis’ Open access publishing for researchers in the UK for more information.
Authors affiliated with the University of Westminster may publish original research and review articles in any of Wiley’s fully gold Open Access or Wiley’s hybrid OnlineOpen journals at no further charge to the author. A hybrid journal is one which accepts articles through a subscription model as well as offering an open access option.
To check the open access availability for a specific journal, use the Author Compliance Tool.
The article must be a primary research or a review article. Other article types e.g. letters, editorials etc. are excluded.
If publishing in a hybrid journal, you must order OnlineOpen at the point of acceptance by using the order workflow as described below. If you don’t order OnlineOpen initially, your manuscript will be published under the traditional closed access model. Once your paper is published in Early View or In Issue online you are no longer eligible to publish OnlineOpen.
To publish in any of Wiley’s fully gold Open Access journals: view journal list - PDF opens in new window.
To publish in any of Wiley’s hybrid journals that offer OnlineOpen: view journal list and follow these instructions - PDF opens in new window.
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
Gold open access is often referred to as the ‘author pays’ model of publishing (rather than the traditional ‘reader pays’), but in actual fact there are many fully open journals that do not make a charge. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a listing of reputable open access journals that will let you know if an Article Processing Charge (APC) must be paid by the author. The University of Westminster Press is an example of one such diamond open access publisher.
Green open access
The item is published in the normal way and then a second copy, usually the accepted author manuscript version, is deposited (‘self-archived’) in an institutional or subject repository and made available on here after any embargo period agreed by the publisher has expired. This is known as ‘green open access’.
Green OA is the University’s preferred route to open access. Create an output record in the VRE and attach a copy of the accepted author manuscript for journal articles and book chapters. For journal articles, this should be done within 3 months of acceptance. The repository team will check publisher policies, applying any required embargo, before making the record live in WestminsterResearch.
There is a Simple Guide to Adding outputs and a short video available.
APC fund to pay Open Access charges
The University has a limited Article Processing Charge (APC) Application Fund to pay Open Access costs for journal articles. All applications are subject to the approval of the Repository and Open Access Manager and budget constraints, as the fund is very limited. The APC Fund’s primary aim is to enable academic freedom to publish in the context of ensuring wide readership and impact for research. If the most appropriate place to publish is a gold, fully open access journal, then the fund will enable this. Please be aware that funding has now run out for the 2025/26 academic year.
What we won't pay for
University of Westminster Press
The University of Westminster Press (UWP) is a non-profit open access publisher of peer reviewed books, journals and policy briefs. UWP is happy to provide informal advice on all aspects of the publishing process or Open Access publishing, whether you are publishing with UWP or elsewhere, especially for Early Career Researchers and first-time authors.
Does my funder have an open access requirement?
Some funding bodies will support their grant holders to deliver on open access policies by paying APCs. Where possible you should include anticipated open access charges in your grant application. Where an APC is paid, most funding bodies will expect the article to be made available under a specific Creative Commons licence, and failure to follow this requirement will result in the output being considered as non-compliant. Please email [email protected] if you have a query about the choice of Creative Commons licence required by your funding body.
It is always good practice to plan publications in the course of a grant, when costs may be covered. If you have received funding, you should acknowledge the funder in any publications that arise from it.
If your funder is not listed here, or you require further information, you may wish to check with them directly or refer to the Sherpa Juliet aggregate list of funder policies.
- UKRI
- Wellcome Trust
- British Academy (BA)
- ERC and EU Horizon 2020
- Leverhulme Trust
- Nuffield Foundation
Creative Commons licences
There is a LibGuide from the Library, Copyright for Researchers which contains a section on Creative Commons licenses.
Creative Commons licences are a type of open licence that you can apply to your work to indicate you are happy to share the work under certain conditions.
They are sometimes described as an alternative to copyright, however Creative Commons does not mean you give up the copyright in your work, or your right to be acknowledged as the creator of a work.
Typically Creative Commons licences are added to online content, and search engines are increasingly able to identify content that has been shared under these licences because in addition to the legal document, there is a machine readable licence.
There are six different licence types, with the most permissive being the CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution) License and most restrictive being the CC-BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives) licence. The licences allow you to specify if you wish your work to be used for commercial purposes and if you require the person re-using your work to share it under the same licence, or if you are happy with derivative works being created from your work.
It is relatively simple to add a Creative Commons Licence to your work. The first step is to visit the Creative Commons website and choose the licence that best suits your needs. The instructions on screen make this relatively straightforward to choose between the six licence types.
There is a blog post giving guidance specifically on How to license your research data is also available.
How to make practice research open
At Westminster work has begun to better capture and share non-traditional research outputs. You can record details of non-text based output types in the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) as well as creating collections of work into wider portfolios of research. Help on how to do this is available.
Contact
Please contact [email protected] for more information on Open Access, or [email protected] for more information on research funding.