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Parkinson's UK Policy

Policy Summary

Electronic copies of original research papers published in a peer reviewed journal, and that acknowledge Parkinson's UK funding, should be made available through Europe PubMed Central within six months of the date of final publication. Any exceptions to this must be sanctioned by the Charity. The open access policy does not apply to editorials, letters, commissioned reviews, scholarly monographs, conference proceedings or book chapters.

Gold Open Access

Parkinson's UK expect their researchers to select publishing routes that ensure the work is available immediately on publication in its final published form, wherever compliant options exist for their journal of choice.

To be compliant, the publisher must apply the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY) to the paper and deposit the final version in Europe PubMed Central under the same licence to be open access from publication. Researchers can determine which jorunals are compliant using the SHERPA/FACT service.

Costs for open access can no longer be met from the Charity Open Access Fund (COAF). Instead, Parkinson's UK researchers are encouraged to include open access costs within their research grant applications. Existing grantholders may be able to use any unspent grant funds or can contact the funder at researchapplications@parkinsons.org.uk to discuss their situation. Funding is available for original research papers only and Parkinson's UK will not cover any additional page charges or colour charges that may apply. 

The university has also entered into transformative agreements with some publishers that may provide compliant open access at no additional cost to authors or the institution.

Alternatively, if authors do not have access to funds they may be able to comply by self-archiving their paper in Europe PMC as below, if the publisher permits this.

Green Open Access

If a journal does not offer gold open access, or it does not meet the policy requirements above, authors may be able to comply via the green route by making the accepted manuscript open access in Europe PubMed Central within six months of publication.

Authors are first advised to check that the journal's policy for self-archiving using Sherpa/Romeo and to contact us to discuss any issues.

If permitted, authors should deposit their accepted manuscript in Europe PubMed Central via Europe PMC plus. All grant holders will have been issued with a Europe PMC Plus account to enable this.

Researchers should apply any embargo period that may be required by the publisher before the accepted manuscript can be publicly accessible. Parkison's UK require that this embargo period should not exceed six months from the final date of publication.

Some publishers will deposit accepted manuscripts in PubMed Central where authors declare Parkinson's UK funding. However, authors will need to confirm if their journal offers this service and if so, that it will meet their funder requirements.

AMRC Open Research

AMRC Open Research is a publishing platform for members of the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC). It allows researchers funded by Parkinson's UK to rapidly publish all research outputs as open access.

At least 1 author on the research article must be formally affiliated with Parkinson's UK funding. Current and past grant holders are eligible to publish research which arises from their Parkinson's UK funding. Parkinson's UK-funded PhD students are welcome to publish on their own provided their supervisor endorses the paper prior to publication.

More information is avaialble on AMRC Open Research.

References

Parkinson's UK open access policy

Open access policy FAQs