Open access guidance for Wellcome Centres and Africa and Asia Programmes

Researchers must refer to our open access policy and specific guidance on how to comply. 

The policy applies to all research articles, scholarly monographs and book chapters that:

• report original research funded, in whole or in part, through a Wellcome grant (either during the award or after the funding period has ended)
• on which an individual in receipt of salary support from Wellcome appears as a co-author during the period of their award (this applies even where the specific research project is not Wellcome-funded)
• are based on research conducted at Wellcome Centres and Africa and Asia Programmes supported through the core award, (this applies even if the research has been primarily supported by grants from one or more other funders). 

Authors must list all the funders of the research and associated grant numbers in the acknowledgements section of the paper, in line with our research publication acknowledgement practice.

Publications that don’t fall into any of the three categories above should not acknowledge Wellcome as a funder. 

For research undertaken at a Centre or Programme (for example, research that depends on resources supported via the core grant), articles must acknowledge Wellcome’s core support and quote the core grant number.

Examples of the wording to use:

Research conducted at a Centre or Programme that has been supported by a Wellcome grant:

This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust [grant number] etc [Programme/Centre name] is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust [Core grant number].

Research conducted at the Centre or Programme that has used resources supported by the core award, but has itself been supported by other funders.

This work was supported by funder 1 [grant number]; funder 2 [grant number], etc… [Programme/Centre name] is supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust [Core grant number].

Wellcome-funded researchers based at a Centre or Programme, who have contributed to research conducted elsewhere, must make sure that their Wellcome funding is cited in line with our acknowledgement guidance.

The Centre or Programme must make sure that the provision of data, materials or technical assistance to external users is acknowledged in papers in line with best practice.

These publications  would only be required to comply with our policy where a Wellcome-funded researcher at the Centre or Programme is named as a co-author.

UK Centres can use the block grants we provide to organisations for eligible Article Processing Charges (APCs)  for journal articles. For open access costs associated with book chapters and monographs, email openaccess@wellcome.org. 

Researchers based at CIDRI-Africa should email openaccess@wellcome.org about funding open access costs. 

Our Africa and Asia Programmes receive funding specifically for eligible open access publishing costs. 

Where a researcher based at a Centre or Programme appears as a co-author on a paper, resulting from research that has been led by other institutions and primarily funded by others, we would expect the main funders of the research to meet the majority of any APCs, where funds are available.

Funds provided should be proportionate to the Centre or Programme’s contribution to the research. We would only expect to fund the full cost of the APC for these papers in exceptional circumstances. 

Centres and Programmes are best placed to judge their contribution to a particular piece of research.

When you submit your publication lists and annual reports, please indicate any publications that you judge fall outside our open access policy.