National Institute for Healthcare Research (NIHR)

A summary of the National Institute for Healthcare Research's open access policy and their requirements for researchers who receive funding from them.

Requirements overview

Requirement Detail
Acknowledge the funder Required
Data accessibility statement Required
Rights retention statement Required if submitting to a subscription journal
Specific licence

CC BY or OGL required

CC BY-ND on request

Embargo limit No embargo permitted
Deposit locations EPMC on publication
APC payment exclusions Page and colour charges and non-Open Access publication fees
APC payment source Pay from NIHR Open Access funding envelope
Other notes  

Further information

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Applicable outputs

"The policy applies to any of the following submitted for publication after 1st June 2022:

  • Peer-reviewed research articles including:
    • Research articles
    • Non-invited reviews
    • Conference papers accepted for final publication in a journal, conference proceeding with an ISSN number, or a publishing platform."

Authors in scope

"By in-scope NIHR funded authors (see here for a list of NIHR in-scope funding)"

Out of scope authors

"Applicable outputs acknowledging out of scope NIHR funding should be deposited within 12 months to Europe PubMed Central (EPMC)."

Licence requirement

"All in-scope articles must be published under the Creative Commons attribution licence (CC BY), or if an author is subject to Crown Copyright (because they are an officer or servant of the Crown, such as a civil servant), they may publish under an Open Government Licence (OGL)."

"Authors may request the use of a CC BY-ND licence for reasons within the context of the research and NIHR will make decisions on a case-by-case basis. To apply for an exception, submit a request as soon as possible, and before publication of the article."

Deposit requirement

"Articles must be deposited into Europe PubMed Central and made available on publication

  • If a fee has been paid for open access from the NIHR funding envelope, journals are required to deposit on the authors behalf.
  • Else authors should self-deposit into EPMC."

Deposit requirement for articles otherwise out of scope

"If the peer-reviewed research article is not within the above scope of research projects, but nevertheless acknowledges NIHR support or funding, the Author Accepted Manuscript or Version of Record must be deposited and made freely accessible (preferably under a CC BY or OGL licence) through Europe PMC, as soon as possible, but no later than 12 months post the official final publication date. This can include, for example, articles which result from NIHR Infrastructure research studies with minority NIHR funding."

As an Oxford author and for REF purposes you should also remember to deposit into ORA.

Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, which is a collaboration between the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford to fund medical research,  receives funding from the NIHR.

Research publication acknowledgement practice: guidance for NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre funded authors

  1. Acknowledgement of NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) support in peer reviewed publications is a contractual obligation of the award made by the NIHR to support the BRC partnership. All publications by BRC-supported or BRC affiliated investigators that report clinical/translational work directly or indirectly supported by the BRC should include clear acknowledgement of NIHR Oxford BRC support. This includes projects where BRC support contributed to infrastructure, support staff or research governance, even if the primary support from the project was from another source.
  2. It is important that all authors on a research publication liaise with the corresponding author(s) to ensure that funder attribution(s) are listed correctly. The following standard text should be included in the relevant funding or acknowledgement section in any peer reviewed publication. Please check the instructions for authors for the relevant publication for further details on how to acknowledge funders.
  3. Acknowledgement of BRC support should be made by including the phrase (Supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford)”. The words in bold are those that will be used for bibliometric analysis. Please note that this may be subject to checking and audit.
  • Example 1: “This work was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Oxford.”
  • Example 2: “The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.”
  • Example 3: If more than one funder or grant was involved, then the suggested text is: “This work was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre Oxford; Cancer Research UK [grant number]; another funder [grant number]; etc.”

In the instance of an anonymous deposit, researchers should include the rights retention text without the funder information:

For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.

They should then include their funder acknowledgement and declare funders to the publisher once the anonymity requirement has been lifted. This is likely on acceptance, but may vary.