Most research funders require you to make your research outputs open access. This means your publications – and sometimes your research data – must be freely available online. Open access research:
- increases the visibility and reach of your work
- supports collaboration and innovation
- ensures that publicly funded research is available to the public
Most major funders – including UKRI, Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and the European Commission – support open access for these reasons.
You must follow your funder’s open access policy
If your funder requires open access, it will be part of your grant terms and conditions. Your funder will have an open access policy that you must follow. If you do not follow the policy:
- your funder may withhold part of your grant
- you may not be eligible for future funding
- your research may not meet the open access requirements for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF)
Your funder may also require you to share the research data that supports your publication.
Recent changes to Cancer Research UK open access policy
Cancer Research UK (CRUK) have recently updated their open access policy and have announced that from 1 April 2026 they will no longer be providing any funding for publishing costs, which includes block grants, use of institute core grants and grant underspends. As of 1 October 2026 all CRUK financial support for open access publishing will end.
CRUK funded researchers are still required to make their research open access in line with their funder’s policy. This means that articles must still be made available under a CC BY licence within 6 months of publication, unless researchers have permission from CRUK to use a CC BY-ND licence. Furthermore, an electronic version must be made available through Europe PMC in the same timeframe.
Researchers can continue to comply with the CRUK policy by following one of the routes below:
1. Publish in a fully open access or hybrid journal which makes the version of record open access immediately on publication. Typically, the journal deposits the final publication in EPMC on the authors’ behalf.
Note: we are currently in a transitional period until 1 October 2026. During this window, researchers with existing grants may still utilise the remaining CRUK block grant funds to cover article processing charges, subject to Cambridge’s available balance. We recommend checking with the Open Access team to see if there is still budget in the block grant that will cover your paper. After 1 October, please check our updated Paying for an APC page to see if your paper would be eligible even without the support of the CRUK block grant.
2. Publish in a subscription journal and make the Author Accepted Manuscript (or the published version, where the journal permits) available no later than six months after publication. This is the new default CRUK route. To make use of this route, we ask authors to submit their Author Accepted Manuscript via Symplectic Elements on acceptance, using the University’s Self-Archiving Policy (SAP) when applicable. Typically, the author self-deposits the Author Accepted Manuscript on Europe PMC.
3. Continue to publish in a journal that has a Read & Publish agreement with the corresponding author’s institution. This facilitates immediate open access at the point of publication. You can read about Cambridge’s Read & Publish agreements here. Deposit via Europe PMC will be journal dependent.
We strongly encourage authors to continue to deposit their Author Accepted Manuscript into Symplectic Elements upon acceptance for timely advice.
Use the JISC tool to find your funder’s policy
You can search for your funder’s open access policy using the Jisc open access policy finder. This tool includes policies for major UK and European research funders. You can also use the JISC tool to find out your publisher's green open access policy.
It is your responsibility to understand your funder’s open access requirements and how to meet them.
Further help and support
If you have questions, or need help finding your funder's policy, please contact the Open Access team.