Open access

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Find out about:

  • the different versions of open access (Green, Gold and Hybrid)
  • complying with policy and funding mandates including for the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
  • UQ eSpace, the University of Queensland's open access institutional repository for research outputs
  • article processing charge (APC) options.
  1. What is open access?
  2. Open access policies and mandates
  3. UQ eSpace and open access
  4. Article processing charges (APCs)
  1. Open access publishing workflow
  2. Copyright and Creative Commons
  3. Find open access journals and resources

2. Open access policies and mandates

UQ Open Access Policy and Guidelines

The Open Access for UQ Research Publications Policy sets out the requirements for University of Queensland researchers to make publications arising from their research openly available via UQ’s institutional repository, UQ eSpace, as soon as possible following acceptance of the publication, taking into account any embargoes imposed by the publisher.

The Policy Guidelines provide authors with information on best practices for making research publications open access and highlight the relevant resources and support available.

Complying with funding mandates

Both the Australian Research Council (ARC) and National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) have open access policies. 

ARC

The ARC Open Access Policy requires: 

  • open access to the post peer review version (Author accepted manuscript/post-print or a publisher's version) within 12 months of publication
  • the metadata available in UQ eSpace within 3 months of publication
  • research outputs to acknowledge funders, including the funder grant ID.

If your publications do not comply with the requirements you will need to provide an explanation in your final report (6.1 of the ARC Open Access Policy).

NHMRC

The NHMRC Open Access Policy (2022) requires from: 

  • 20 Sep 2022 - immediate open access for all publications relating to new NHMRC grant funding 
  • 1 Jan 2024 – immediate open access for all publications relating to all NHMRC grant funding. 

Researchers can comply with the mandate by either: 

  • Publishing in a fully Open Access journal and paying an Article Processing Charge (APC) or using a Library pre-paid APC via one of our Read and Publish agreements 
  • Depositing the Author Accepted Manuscript under a CC-BY licence in UQ eSpace at the same time as publishing in a journal that is not open access. This approach will require a Rights Retention Strategy.
  • Making a preprint openly available will NOT meet the OA policy requirements for ARC and NHMRC. These are the versions of papers prior to peer review
  • It is NOT advised to use social networking sites (e.g. ResearchGate) as a means of achieving open access.

Other funding agencies

If you have funding from another funding agency, check your funding agreement. Other funders (e.g. Wellcome Trust or Horizon 2020) have more onerous OA compliance requirements.

Use our Journal Search tool to make informed publishing decisions, including locating reputable open access journals to submit your manuscripts to and identify the journals included into Read and Publish agreements for a discount or full APC coverage. 

Contact the Librarian team for expert advice.

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UQ policies and procedures

Other related policies

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