Policy for authors funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
For grants awarded as a result of applications since 1 October 2006, Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant holders are required to submit an electronic copy of their research papers to the ESRC research catalogue. See ESRC’s policy for details: ESRC's policy on open access to research outputs
Elsevier’s policy allows authors who publish in Elsevier journals to comply with these requirements by depositing the final manuscript in the ESRC research catalogue. This policy is intended to support the needs of Elsevier authors, editors and society publishing partners, and to protect the quality and integrity of the peer-review process.
ESRC and Elsevier have developed a dual option agreement for ESRC-funded authors:
Option 1
ESRC-funded authors publishing in Elsevier journals can comply with the ESRC policy by paying a fee to the journal to help offset the cost of peer review and other publishing costs. The fee has initially been set at $3,000 per article for all Elsevier journals except those published by Cell Press, which have a $5,000 per article fee, and The Lancet, which will have a fee of £400 per page. The difference in fees for The Lancet and Cell Press reflects higher associated costs.
ESRC makes provision for open access publication fees as part of the grant costs, and will not reimburse authors separately for these fees. To facilitate this process, authors will be prompted to identify their research as being ESRC-funded during transfer of copyright and should identify their ESRC grant reference number during this process.
Upon final publication, Elsevier will send to the ESRC research catalogue the final document used to generate the published journal article that appears on ScienceDirect. This document reflects all author-agreed changes that arise from the peer-review, copy-editing and proofing processes. Elsevier will authorise its public posting on the ESRC research catalogue immediately. The research catalogue will also link directly to the final published journal article, which will continue to reside only on Elsevier’s websites and which Elsevier will make freely available to both non-subscribers and subscribers. Subject to certain conditions, documents published under this sponsorship model may be redistributed and reused.
Option 2
For authors who choose not to sponsor their article the second option within this agreement allows direct posting of the author accepted manuscript to the ESRC research catalogue after a journal specific embargo period. The embargo periods are set by Elsevier.
Authors who wish to take up this option should check the sponsorship agreement website identified in their journal publishing agreement before posting their manuscript to determine the embargo period for the journal in question. This is likely to be any period from 12 to 36 months after publication.
There is no change to Elsevier’s author posting policy that allows authors to post revised personal versions of manuscripts (those that reflect changes made in the peer review) on their own websites and the sites of their institutions, provided a link to the journal is included. Posting directly to other sites outside an author’s institution continues to be prohibited, as does any further republishing or redistribution of Elsevier copyright-protected content and society copyright-protected content published by Elsevier. This new policy enables ESRC-funded authors to comply with the ESRC policy without having to violate their publishing agreements with Elsevier.
Read the supplementary conditions - this includes a statement covering the use of sponsored articles for non-commercial purposes: users may access, download, copy, display and redistribute documents as well as adapt, translate, text and data mine content contained in documents, subject to the conditions specified.
This policy is consistent with Elsevier’s long-standing record of adapting to meet authors’ changing needs, preserving the quality and integrity of the peer-review process, and providing value throughout the publishing cycle. It is another example of Elsevier’s ongoing engagement with scientific and academic communities to explore ways to deliver demonstrable and sustainable benefits for the research communities we serve.