SFI now requires all peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings submitted for publication after 1st January 2021 to be made openly accessible immediately from the date of publication. This requirement also applies to other funding agencies that have endorsed cOAlition S / Plan S e.g. Wellcome Trust.
SFI's Open Access policy requires authors to include the following Rights Retention Statement (RRS) on all submitted manuscripts.
‘This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [XX]. 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’.
Or ‘
This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a grant from Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [XX]. 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’.
Please note if you choose to publish as a Gold Open Access article using the library's publisher agreements or publish in a Fully Open Access Journal then the Rights Retention Statement does not need to be included in subsequent versions of the manuscript.
Check which journals are compliant with your funder's requirements, and the options available to you
There are three main routes through which you can comply with SFI's Open Access policy:
1. Publish in a fully Open Access journal
A list of reputable Open Access journals can be found in the Directory of Open Access Journals. Some journals charge authors articles processing charges (APCs) to cover Open Access publishing costs. SFI will allow researchers to use a proportion of their grant award to cover these costs in fully Open Access journals or transformative journals, but not other hybrid journals. More specifically:
"Currently SFI will support the use of grand funds to pay article processing charges in Gold Open Access Journals
However grantees are "not permitted to use SFI grant funds to publish in hybrid journals, in Bronze OA journals or in journals that apply embargoes to publications". Hybrid journals are subscription journals which allow individual articles to be published Open Access upon payment of an APC.
2. Publish in a journal covered by The Glucksman Library's Open Access publishing "transformative" agreements (No cost to authors)
Under these agreements, Open Access publishing costs are fully covered where the corresponding author is affiliated with UL, subject to the terms and conditions of each specific agreement, so there is no direct cost to authors. UL Library currently has agreements with:
ACM, AIP, Annual Reviews, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, Company of Biologists, Electrochemical Society, Science Direct (Elsevier), Royal Irish Academy, The Microbiology Society.
and The Royal Society.
For full details of which journals are covered, how many funded APCs are available, and how to avail of publishing through this route, see The library's OA publishing agreement guide.
3. Publish in a subscription (or hybrid) journal and self-archive the author's accepted manuscript (AAM) in an Open Access repository such as ULIR.
Many journals apply a 6-48 month embargo with this route to open access. In order for authors to retain their rights to share the AAM with a CC BY licence without any embargo, SFI’s policy requests grant holders must include the following “Rights Retention” statement, on all manuscript submissions:
‘This publication has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [XX]. 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’.
Or ‘
This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a grant from Science Foundation Ireland under Grant number [XX]. 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’.
Including this “Rights Retention” text upon submission in either the submission letter, acknowledgements section, or both, is an essential part of using this route to compliance.