The rules on where you can publish are changing: do you know what they are?

29th Mar 2022

From 1^st April, new rules come in to force which means that UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) joins other major funders - including SFI and Wellcome - in only allowing publication of research they have funded in journals which are compliant with Plan S.

Whether or not a journal is compliant depends on several factors, including the institution in which you work. However, the main factor is the degree to which a journal is committed to Open Access content. Here are some examples and tools:

• Compliant journals = Gold Open Access journals such as Brain and Neuroscience Advances, eNeuro or eLife
• Non-compliant = ‘traditional’ subscription journals e.g. Journal of Neuroscience or Neuroscience
• May or may not be compliant = journals with a transformative agreement with your institution e.g. Neuron or the European Journal of Neuroscience.

Post-publication update (31/3/22): We are aware that since our initial checks of the journals listed were carried out via the Journal Checker Tool on 15 March 2022, the data have been updated that makes more of the journals listed compliant. Please check the tool for the most up-to-date information on a journal's compliance with the new policy. 

Post-publication update (14/4/22): In the original version of this article, we mistakenly included journals which exclusively publish review articles. These have now been removed. Plan S solely applies to primary research pubulications, and therefore reveiw articles fall out of scope. Please see page 8 of the UKRI Open Access Policy.

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More information about Plan S and cOAlition S

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations.

The key commitment of Plan S is as follows: “all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants provided by national, regional and international research councils and funding bodies, must be published in Open Access Journals, on Open Access Platforms, or made immediately available through Open Access Repositories without embargo.” (see coalition-s.org)

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More information about compliant neuroscience journals

Please use the Journal Checker Tool and undertake your own checks on journals, since the results depend on the specific circumstances of your own research, including your institution and your funder. The information given below is just illustrative.

Having assessed a list of 20 prominent UK and international neuroscience journals with the Journal Checker Tool, here is what we found.  These results have limitations including:

• If the journal is a transformative journal, or has a transformative agreement, the outcome will depend on circumstances of your individual research
• Even if your funder is committed to Plan S, each funder can differ with their requirements.
• Be aware that journals may be non-compliant due to funder requirements, even if the journals offer a transformative journal route or the ability to make individual papers Gold OA.
• The number of submissions to a specific journal allowed per year may depend on the level of transformative agreement that your institution has with the publisher.
• This summary table may miss some nuances in terms of ‘how close’ a journal is to being compliant with Plan S (e.g. has CC BY-NC-ND - www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0, but has an embargo period). 
• This information is solely based on that from Journal Checker tool; it has not been verified by looking at the relevant Journal websites
• Nor is it an exhaustive list
• There is some ambiguity, hopefully clarified with funders over next few months, about the role of co-authors, e.g., if the lead/senior/corresponding author does not have same funder/institute and hence restrictions as you.

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What to do next:

• Check if your funder is committed to Plan S at coalition-s.org/plan-s-funders-implementation
• Check which journals are compliant at journalcheckertool.org.  This tool will also be used by UKRI.
• Be aware of ongoing changes with respect to whether a journal is compliant

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