Open Access Policy

1. Purpose

Original published research that arises from SEA DREAM funding must be open and accessible to everyone.

The overarching aim of our Open Access (OA) Policy is to ensure that knowledge and discoveries resulting from our funding are shared and used in a way that maximises their benefit to health. The policy applies to original published research, research articles, monographs and book chapters.

2. Our Policy

All publications that report original research, which has been supported in whole, or in part, by SEA DREAM must:

1. be made freely available from Europe PubMed Central upon publication
2. be under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence, or a CC-BY-ND licence by exception, and
3. include a data availability statement, in line with our Data, Software and Materials Management and Sharing Policy

SEA DREAM-funded researchers or organisations should ensure they have retained sufficient rights over their research outputs to comply with the policy requirements.

3. How to Comply with Our Policy 

To comply with the policy, researchers must ensure that a version of the research publication listed below is available within Europe PMC under a CC BY license upon publication (6-month embargo is not allowed). This could be:

• the Version of Record (VoR): the final fully copyedited, typeset and formatted copy of a manuscript, as printed and distributed by a publisher

• the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): the version of a research article accepted for publication which includes all changes made during the peer-review process

If you are unable to make the Version of Record or the Author Accepted Manuscript open access, then you may post 

• the Preprint: the version of a scholarly or scientific paper that precedes formal peer review and publication in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, under a CC BY licence. We will accept this as compliant with the policy in these situations. 

All SEA DREAM-funded researchers are strongly encouraged to post preprints of their work. Where there is a significant public health benefit to preprints being shared widely and rapidly, such as a disease outbreak or public health emergency, SEA DREAM requires the posting of preprints. Preprints must be published under a CC BY license to facilitate the dissemination of results and, at times, open access compliance.

The CC BY license is the most permissive of the six Creative Commons licenses. It allows others to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the work in any medium or format, including for commercial purposes, provided proper attribution or credit is given to the creator. If you want to compare CC BY against other license types, check here.

The grantees are required to explicitly mention which version(s) of their research publications will be made available within Europe PMC and under which type of Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

Unlike research articles, exceptions are made for scholarly monographs and book chapters as below:

• contents may be embargoed for up to 6 months from the official final publication date prior to release in Europe PMC

• where an open access fee is paid, researchers can choose the Creative Commons licence the work is published under. Our preference is for CC BY

4. How to acknowledge SEA DREAM funding in research outputs

Grantees must acknowledge SEA DREAM's support, along with Wellcome and UK FCDO, in all their research publications and other outputs. This enables us to monitor and evaluate the outputs of the research we fund. 

Your acknowledgement must adhere to the following rules:

• the acknowledgement should be included in the funding section or any other appropriate section of the publication.

• the full name(s) of your funder(s) must be stated

• grant reference numbers should be presented in square brackets (use the main SEA DREAM grant number provided in the examples below, rather than the individual grant number assigned to you)

• if more than one funder needs to be acknowledged, separate each funder with a semi-colon

5.Eligible Costs

6.Monitoring of Compliance

We monitor research publications authored by our funded researchers to make sure they comply with our policy. We do this when researchers and organisations apply for funding, during compliance audit, and through end-of-grant reporting. 

Basically, we will use findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR) principles to monitor if, and how far, the grantees comply with our open access policy: 

• Findable: A research article is findable if it is indexed by PubMed.

• Accessible: A research article is accessible if it is available as full text in Europe PMC.

• Interoperable: A research article is interoperable if it is published in a machine-readable format such as XML.

• Reusable: A research article is reusable if it is published under a licence which allows users to reuse the work.

Only when SEA DREAM funded researchers have ensured their research publications are compliant will we issue formal notification of any funding renewals or new grants, or accept new grant applications from them if opportunities arise. If a number of researchers from an organisation fail to comply with our open access policy, we will work with the organisation to better understand and resolve the issues. If an organisation doesn't work with us on this, we reserve the right to suspend grant payments to that organisation.

7.Annexes

Annex I. Complying with Our Open Access Policy

1.1. Overview

This guidance provides practical advice on how to comply with our open access (OA) policy.

1.2. Publishing Original Research Articles

Route I. Publishing the Version of Record (VoR) in a fully open access journal or platform

Using this route, which is our preferred route, the publisher takes responsibility for making the version of record (VoR) for the article freely available from Europe PMC at the time of publication, under a CC BY licence.  We are willing to fund reasonable article processing charges for articles published in fully open access journals or platforms where:

• it is indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and
• has an agreement with the National Library of Medicine to deposit the version of record (VoR) in PMC and allow that content to be shared with Europe PMC

Most subscription journals provide options that enable authors to make the version of record (VoR) open access, usually by charging authors an article processing charge for their open access publishing services.  However, SEA DREAM will not fund the article processing charges for articles published in subscription journals.

Route II. Self-archiving the Author Accepted Manuscript

If you do not have access to organisational agreements to publish the version of record (VoR) open access in a journal, you can make a different version of your article (the Author Accepted Manuscript or the preprint) open access in line with our policy. Or consider publishing your research in a different journal. 

If you are complying with the policy using the Author Accepted Manuscript version of the article, you must self-archive the Author Accepted Manuscript under a CC BY licence in Europe PMC at the time of publication of the final published version of record. 

Rights retention  

Check that you or your organisation can retain sufficient rights to be able to share the Author Accepted Manuscript version of the manuscript. Before submitting to a journal, it is your responsibility to check that your agreement with your journal of choice allows you to do this. If you want to retain your right to self-archive, let the publisher know at the point of submission. If your organisation has a rights-retention policy, they may provide standard language to use. If your organisation does not have a rights-retention policy, you can use the following wording:  

'This research was funded in whole, or in part by the Wellcome Trust [Grant number 314988/Z/24/Z]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.'  

If the above rights-retention text is used, it should be included in: 

• any cover letter that accompanies the submission 

• the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript 

When using this route to compliance, no article processing charge (APC) is payable to the publisher. SEA DREAM open access funds cannot be used to pay article processing charges in subscription journals.    

How to self-archive the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) 

Route III. Publishing a Preprint on a Preprint Server Indexed in Europe PMC

Exception to the CC BY licence

Our policy requires all SEA DREAM-funded original research to be published under a CC BY licence. We believe that this licence enables the full potential of research publications as it removes restrictions on access to, and re-use of, this information.   

However, we understand that there are some instances where researchers may wish to limit re-use of published research. For example, where private archival content or research participants have been quoted. In these cases, you can ask for an exception for an individual article to be published under a Creative Commons No-Derivatives licence (CC BY-ND), so that your research cannot be used to create derivatives works without your permission.

1.3. Monographs and Book Chapters

We recognise that key research findings may be published as scholarly monographs or book chapters. We also want the visibility and impact of these research outputs to be maximised.

What’s covered by our policy

Our open access policy applies to all original scholarly monographs and book chapters authored or co-authored by SEA DREAM grantees as part of their grant-funded research. The policy does not apply to textbooks, ‘trade’ books, general reference works or works of fiction, or to collections edited, but not authored, by SEA DREAM grantees. 

We will make funds available for the payment of publishers’ open access monograph and book chapter processing charges.

Differentiating between journals and book series

It may be unclear whether your work is being published in a journal or as part of a book series. Some journals indexed in MEDLINE (U.S. National Library of Medicine – NLM – bibliographic database) are marketed as book series. However, as all publications indexed by MEDLINE have been submitted for indexing as journals by the publisher, we consider them to be journals.

How to comply with our open access policy

Where an open access publishing fee is charged, works must be available on publication and licensed in ways which support their re-use. CC BY is strongly preferred, however, where authors have concerns around the creation of derivative works, we will accept other creative commons licences such as CC BY-NC (Non Commercial) or CC BY-NC-ND (Non Commercial; No Derivatives).

Funding is available to cover publishers' open access monograph and book chapter processing charges.  

Using third-party images in open access publications

It is possible to use third-party images in open access publications. You must ask for permission to use the image(s) as usual. It’s important to inform the owner of the image that your work will be published open access. However, the choice of how the image itself is licensed remains with the image’s owner. Ideally, the image will be published under the same licence as the rest of your work, but this is not essential – the image can be licensed separately.

How we define ‘scholarly’ monographs or book chapters

‘Scholarly’ books are defined by their content and their intended audience.

• Content – the books represent the results of original academic research, presented in accordance with recognised academic conventions, for example with rigorous inclusion of bibliographic references.

• Audience – scholarly books are written by, and aimed at, those who are actively engaged with or interested in academic research, rather than a general readership.  

Identification

Scholarly books are sometimes identifiable by the publisher, imprint, or series, or by the way in which they are described and marketed by publishers. They’re unlikely to be stocked by general booksellers.

What to expect from publishers

When paying a fee to make your book open access, your publisher should:  

• offer the same peer review and marketing services for open access books as they do for non-open access books

• make the full text of the monograph or book chapter freely available in HTML and PDF format on their website

• deposit your work in NCBI Bookshelf on your behalf, to help you comply with our open access policy

Most publishers publish a print copy and an epub version (digital file) of the book to sell. Some publishers offer the epub for free. Some publishers offer royalties on print and e-book sales of open access books. This is something you can discuss during the negotiation.  

1.4. The scope of being funded 'in whole or in part'

Our open access policy applies:  

• to research that has been funded in whole or in part through a SEA DREAM grant (either during the award, or after the funding period has ended) 

• where a Grantholder or any other individual in receipt of full salary support from SEA DREAM appears as a co-author during the period of their award (this applies even where the specific research project is not SEA DREAM-funded)

SEA DREAM-funded researchers should ensure that the provision of data, materials or technical assistance to external users is acknowledged in resulting research articles, in line with best practice in that field. But these papers would only fall under our policy where a SEA DREAM-funded researcher appears as a co-author. 

Annex II. Applying for a No-Derivatives (ND) Licence exception

By default, SEA DREAM’s Open Access (OA) policy requires research articles which arise from its funding to be made available under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CCBY). We believe this is the best way of maximising the impact of the research we fund, as it allows others to build upon and re-use this research, subject to the academic norms of attribution.

However, we recognise that some researchers would prefer that their research cannot be used to create derivative works - such as a translation, or inclusion in an anthology of related works - without their explicit permission. To accommodate this, we allow our funded researchers to apply for a No Derivatives exception. When this exception is approved, the work can be made available under the CC-BY-ND licence.

To apply for an ND exception, please send an email to SEA DREAM’s Head of Program by providing the complete information as detailed below. This request must be made in advance of publication. We will endeavour to respond to all such requests within 5-10 working days of their receipt.

• name 

• email address

• SEA DREAM grant number

• article title for which you are seeking the ND exception

• name of journal which is considering publishing this research

• please tell us why you are seeking this exception

• if this work is co-funded, please let us know the name of the other funder(s) and the relevant grant numbers

SEA DREAM collects your personal information (name, email address and grant number(s)) solely for the purposes of considering this request and annotating your grant record when a No-Derivatives Licence has been granted. We may notify repositories such as Europe PMC that such a No-Derivatives Licence can be applied to any manuscripts you submit via the Europe PMC submission system.

This information is collected and processed in accordance with applicable data protection laws. If you have any questions, please contact the Compliance, Risk and MEAL Officer of SEA DREAM.

Annex III. Open Access Monograph and Book Chapter Deposit Form