Open Access Deals
When the library subscribes to a publisher's journals, we often pay extra so that corresponding authors from the University of Bristol can publish their work using the gold open access route regardless of their funding situation. These deals are often referred to as Read and Publish deals, transformative deals or transformative agreements.
When to use a deal
You should use a Read and Publish Deal if:
- The corresponding author is from the University of Bristol
- Your output is an original research paper journal article (We cannot use the deals for letters to the editor, editorials, book reviews, case studies etc. We are only able to cover protocols for Wellcome Trust funded authors.)
- Your journal is included in one of our open access deals.
Check whether your journal is included in an open access deal
You can also check our full list of open access deals to see which publishers are covered.
How to use a deal
Be sure to mention your University of Bristol affiliation on the paper and use your University of Bristol email address. On acceptance for publication, your publisher will usually contact you to say that you are covered by the deals.
Select a CC-BY licence
If you are asked which licence to apply to the article, select CC-BY.
Page and Colour Charges
Charges for additional pages, colour illustrations or other non-open access charges cannot be paid from these deals. Funders usually do not allow you to pay them from your own grant. If your publisher asks you for these fees you need to ask for them to waive them or see if there is funding available within your department.
Alternative open access routes
If you are not the corresponding author, or we do not have an open access deal for your journal, there are two other ways to make your article open access:
Check to see if it can be covered by a funder grant
Some journals require an Article Processing Charge (APC) for all articles. You can check if your journal is one of them by searching the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to see if your journal appears. If so, see our guidance on paying an Article Processing Charge to see if the library can pay that charge.
Use the Scholarly Works Policy to upload to Pure
If you are not the corresponding author, or otherwise unable to use a deal, then you can still make your paper open access by using the university's Scholarly Works Policy and uploading a copy of your accepted manuscript to Pure. See our Scholarly Works Policy guidance for more information.
Additional Resources
- For a simple outline of the process, or to track your paper's open access status, you can use the Open Access Deals Checklist (PDF, 238kB)
- To look at route this alongside the other options, please see the Open Access Flowchart (PDF, 167kB)
Useful Resources
The Open Access Deals Checklist (PDF, 238kB) can help you track the process.
The Open Access Flowchart (PDF, 167kB) shows how to use all three open access routes.