Open Access waiver request information

Some universities and institutions  have adopted open access policies, which, in some respects, are incompatible with IOP Publishing’s green open access policy which applies when the article is published on a subscription basis. Please check whether you or any of your co-author(s) are affiliated to a university or institution which has an open access policy which is incompatible with IOP Publishing’s green open access policy. If you are, then we will need you to obtain a waiver for the article from your institution or university. Institutions allow for such waivers in their policies. Institutions with such policies are predominantly in the USA.

For examples of open access policies which are incompatible with IOP Publishing’s green open access policy, see below.

Green open access is the process of archiving a copy of an accepted manuscript* on an institutional or subject repository in parallel to publishing with IOP Publishing. IOP Publishing believes that gold open access is the most sustainable route to open access but provides green open access options to those authors wanting or needing to share their work in this way. 

IOP Publishing allows authors of articles published on a subscription basis to post an accepted manuscript as follows: 

 Subscription-based journals must insist on the 12-month embargo because immediate availability of peer-reviewed articles in public repositories removes the means of funding the journal’s costs of operation. For full details on your rights as an author of a subscription-based article, including full details on how and when you can share the accepted manuscript, please refer to our Author Rights Policy (or the relevant partner specific policy, if you have published with one of our society partners). 

Authors publishing an article on a gold open access basis can post the accepted manuscript on a repository immediately if required. 

For UK authors to comply with the requirements of the HEFCE post-2014 REF policy, IOP Publishing allows closed deposits on repositories within certain specified time-frames. To see full information on this, please refer to our Author Rights Policy. 

 If you are publishing the results of research funded by a US government agency, or if you are employed by the US government, then please see our guide to US public access. 

IOP Publishing will deposit papers in PubMed Central automatically in the following cases: 

• Articles funded by the NIH: the accepted manuscript will be deposited after the 12-month embargo period; 
• Gold open access articles funded by Wellcome Trust: the version of record will be deposited upon publication. 

 Authors may be permitted to opt out of an institutional open access policy. Further information on obtaining a waiver from an institutional open access policy can be found here. 

 IOP Publishing supports the sharing of preprints. View our preprint policy. 

*The accepted manuscript is ‘the version of the article accepted for publication including all changes made as a result of the peer review process, and which may also include the addition to the article by IOP Publishing of a header, an article ID, a cover sheet and/or an ‘accepted manuscript’ watermark, but excluding any other editing, typesetting or other changes made by IOP Publishing and/or its licensors’. 

Each Named Author affiliated to an institution/university, whose article is being published on a subscription basis (i.e. not on a gold open access basis), must obtain a waiver for the article from their institution’s or university’s open access policy, if the policy is incompatible with IOP Publishing’s green open access policy. This must happen before the article is accepted. Without all the relevant waivers being obtained, IOP Publishing may not be able to publish the article.

Some examples are:

1. If the policy requires the Final Published Version (rather than the Accepted Manuscript) to be deposited; or
2. If the policy requires an open access or any form of Creative Commons licence to be attached to the Accepted Manuscript when depositing it in the repository which does not comply with its copyright status; or
3. If the institution/university repository automatically attaches an open access or Creative Commons licence to the Accepted Manuscript which does not comply with its copyright status

The above list is intended to provide examples only. It is not a comprehensive list of how a policy could be incompatible with IOP’s green open access policy.

*Accepted Manuscripts of subscription articles published by IOP are either fully copyright protected or published under a  CC BY-NC-ND licence. To check the copyright status of the Accepted Manuscript, refer to the cover sheet attached by IOP Publishing.

For more information on open access policy waivers, why they are required, which Named Authors they apply to and how to request a waiver, please refer to this guidance on requesting open access policy waivers.

Please obtain all necessary waivers prior to signing the copyright form. They must all be obtained prior to acceptance, at the latest.

Each relevant Named Author is responsible for obtaining a waiver for the article from their institution or university (as applicable).

The Submitting Author is responsible for checking with all of their co-authors of the article to ensure that they have obtained a waiver if required.

The Submitting Author must then sign the copyright form, including ticking the ‘Please tick this box to confirm that each Named Author, who is affiliated to a university/institution which has an open access policy which is incompatible with IOP’s green open access policy, has obtained a waiver for the Article from their institution or university’s open access policy’ box.

Generally most open access policies apply at an article level rather than author level. If this is how your institution’s or university’s open access policy works, then only one author per relevant institution/university needs to obtain a waiver for the article.

No. For the time being, you do not need to send the waivers to IOP Publishing. However, please retain them somewhere safe as we may need you to send them to us in the future as proof of compliance.

Yes. Generally universities/institutions have set their policies so that waivers apply at an article level. Faculty members cannot permanently opt themselves out of this arrangement, but they can opt out on an article-by-article basis. This means that, for each article you wish to publish on a subscription basis with IOP Publishing, you will need to request a waiver.

Some universities and institutions have open access policies, but faculty are not always aware of their existence.  Therefore, if you are not sure, we suggest you search for ‘open access policy’ on your institution’s/university’s website, or in a search engine including the name of your institution/university.  Or you could check with your university librarian.

This website contains a list of a number of institutions and universities which have an open access policy, but it should not be treated as a comprehensive list.  Each Named Author who is affiliated to a university/institution is responsible for checking whether their institution or university has an open access policy and, if so,  whether it is incompatible with IOP Publishing’s green open access policy.

Institutions with such policies are predominantly in the USA.

Generally, authors are able to obtain a waiver from their institution’s or university’s open access policy via a webpage on their institution’s or university’s website.  Institutions allow for such waivers in their policies. There is often a short online form to fill in which will then generate a waiver for the article automatically.

If you are unable to find the relevant webpage, we suggest you search for ‘open access policy waiver’ on your institution’s or university’s website, or in a search engine including the name of your institution/university.

Below are useful links to a few of the US universities’ and institutions’ open access waiver policies and waiver request pages which we have found. This should not be treated as a comprehensive list, but if you are from one of these universities or institutions you may find it useful.

As far as we are aware, universities/institutions usually grant waivers free of charge. If you have any queries on this, you will need to check with your particular university or institution.

Each waiver will vary slightly by institution/university.

Obtaining a waiver from your university’s or institution’s open access policy allows IOP Publishing to publish the article on a subscription basis, which is free of charge for the author and does not incur an Article Publication Charge.  It also allows IOP Publishing to support green open access as part of a clear and comprehensive policy.

Yes.  When we publish on a subscription basis, we grant back certain rights to authors.  This generally allows authors to post the Accepted Manuscript of the article to an institutional repository or subject-based repository after a 12 month embargo period.

For more information on rights granted to authors, please refer to our Author Rights Policy.

If you are unclear as to what you need to do, or have any other questions please contact the relevant journal email address at IOP Publishing for assistance.