Editor’s Note: Today’s post is by Victoria Ficarra and Rob Johnson of Research Consulting. It was written as a precursor to the CCC Town Hall program webinar “Understanding the new UKRI Open Access Policy’’ on UKRI’s Open Access (OA) policy, which took place on Wednesday 27^th October. An archived recording of the meeting is available online.

The long-awaited Open Access (OA) policy from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK’s leading research funder, is here. UKRI will provide almost £50 million ($67 million) per annum of its annual £8 billion ($10 billion) budget to support stakeholders in implementing the new policy. An outcome of a three-year review process, the policy was finalized and published on 6^th August 2021, after receiving 350 responses over the course of a year-long consultation.

The policy aims to increase opportunities for access, sharing, and reuse of research outputs. It sits in the wider context of an increased investment from the UK government in R&D as part of its plans to build back better following the COVID-19 pandemic. Although final terms and conditions won’t be finalized until late 2021 for articles and 2022 for books, here are five things you ought to know