Publication Policy v5
January 2021

Wellcome Sanger Institute
PUBLICATION POLICYThis policy applies to any article which:•includes original, peer-reviewed researchand•is submitted for publication from 1 January 2021.

Publications submitted before 1st January 2021 and all monographs and book chapters are subject tothe previous policy (Annex 1).

Open and Unrestricted Access to Published Research
Wellcome is a leading advocate of open and unrestricted access to published research andmandates that publications resulting from the research it funds must be made available publicly
and freely through Europe PMC.
The Sanger Institute has a strong record of making its research outputs widely available and fully
supports Wellcome’s policy on open and unrestricted access to published research. Sanger Instituteresearchers must adhere to the following policy for all research publications based on work carriedout while they benefit from Wellcome-funded resources:
1. All research articles supported in whole or in part by Wellcome must be:
1.1. made freely available through PubMed Central (PMC) and Europe PMC by the official final
publication date. A six month embargo is no longer permissible.
and1.2. published under a Creative Commons attribution licence (CC-BY), unless Wellcome has
agreed, as an exception, to allow publication under a CC-BY-ND licence2

The following statement must be included on all submissions of original research to peerreviewed journals:'This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust Grant [xxx]*.
For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyrightlicence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from thissubmission.'*For research carried out before October 2021 use grant number 206194. For research carriedout after October 2021 use grant number 108413/A/15/D
This ensures that you can continue to publish in any journal you choose (provided it accepts that
Author Accepted Manuscripts arising from submissions from Wellcome-funded researchers will
already be licensed under a prior CC BY licence) and retain the necessary intellectual property
rights to remain compliant with our OA policy.
We recommend that this text is also included in:••any cover letter that accompanies the submission
the funding acknowledgement section of the manuscript.

Publication Policy v5
January 2021

3. All research articles must include a statement explaining how other researchers can access any
data, original software or materials underpinning the research.
4. Authors must ensure that they or Sanger retain sufficient intellectual property rights to comply
with their OA requirements.
5. Researchers and organisations who do not comply with Wellcome’s OA policy will be subject toappropriate sanctions. These may include Wellcome:• Not accepting new grant applications• Suspending funding to organisations in extreme cases

How to Comply
There are three publishing routes you can follow to comply with this policy:
Route 1: Publish in a fully OA journal or platform indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals(DOAJ).
Route 2: Publish in a subscription journal and take responsibility for making the Author AcceptedManuscript (AAM) freely available from Europe PMC at the time of publication. The AAM is theversion of the article which has been accepted for publication and includes all changes madeduring the peer review process. The AAM has not been though the publisher’s copy editing
processes. Note: in this case you should not pay any publication charge to the publisher.
Route 3: Publish in a subscription journal through a transformative arrangement that is available
to you via the campus library (Ashburner Library library@sanger.ac.uk). These arrangements aretemporary while the publisher transitions to OA.
Use the Plan S Journal Checker Tool to see what the options are for individual journals.
Our preferred routes to compliance are routes 1 or 3. These options ensure that the final publishedversion (which includes all copy-editing changes and a commitment to update the work with any
corrections etc) is made OA at the time of publication.
With the exception of journals covered by a transformative arrangement, the Institute no longer
covers the costs of OA publishing in subscription journals.
We do not fund any non-OA publication costs (for example colour, page charges etc).
There is extensive further information and guidance at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/openaccess
Email any queries to the library staff library@sanger.ac.uk or Wellcome openaccess@wellcome.org

Pre-Prints
All researchers are strongly encouraged to:••post preprints of their completed manuscripts
publish them under a CC BY licence on a platform that is indexed in Europe PMC.

Publication Policy v5
January 2021

Where there is a significant public health benefit to preprints being shared widely and rapidly, such asa disease outbreak, we require the posting of preprints:•••

before peer-review
on an approved platform that supports immediate publication of the complete manuscript
under a CC BY licence.

Good Publication Practice
6. Researchers should properly acknowledge the contributions of colleagues, collaborators, and allothers (including Technical Staff) who directly assist or indirectly support their research.
7. Anyone listed as an author on a paper must accept responsibility for ensuring that they arefamiliar with the contents of the paper and can identify their contribution to it.
8. Plagiarism (the general misappropriation or use of others’ ideas, intellectual property or work,
written or otherwise, without acknowledgement or permission) and failure to properly
acknowledge the contributions of other could be research misconduct. Concerns aboutauthorship or any other forms of academic misconduct should be raised with members of faculty
or members of the Board of Management.
9. You must acknowledge, in the prescribed format, Wellcome and the Institute core grant number
in all your research publications. This applies even if you are not the corresponding author. See
the Publications Guidelines document linked below for details.

Publication Guidelines v2
May 2020

PUBLICATION GUIDELINES May 2020
1. Funding Acknowledgement
1.1 Wellcome funding must be acknowledged in publications.
To enable Wellcome and the Institute to collect publication data associated with projects,
acknowledgements on orginal peer reviewed research should adhere to the following
format:•In the case of a single funder the acknowledgement should read "This work was
supported by the Wellcome Trust grant [xxx]*. For the purpose of Open Access, theauthor has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript
version arising from this submission.”•In the case of multiple grants the format should be: “This work was supported by the
Wellcome Trust grant [xxx]*; the Natural Environment Research Council grant [xxxx]; andthe Economic and Social Research Council grant [aaaa]. For the purpose of Open Access,the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author AcceptedManuscript version arising from this submission.' ”•

To be clear: if the work was funded by a third party, both the third party and theWellcome grant should be acknowledged (as described above) unless all authors weresolely funded by third parties.

1.2 For research carried out using core funding between October 2016- October 2021, please
use the Wellcome Trust grant number: 206194. For research carried out after October 2021
use grant number 108413/A/15/D

2. Description of Data Availability
Please read the Institute’s Data Sharing Policy and Guidelines
2.1 Data underpinning research papers must be shared as described in the Data Sharing
Guidelines.
2.2 Data availability should be described in a section of the paper’s ‘Methods’ section, even if itneeds to be noted elsewhere as per journal guidelines. The main study level EBI accession
number (e.g., EGAS00000000029) should always be provided in this main description of data
availability (in the ‘Methods’ section), as should a link to the corresponding Sanger Website
More Data page if you have used one. Further detail, such as long lists of data set level
accession numbers (e.g., EGAD00001000002), can go in supplementary material.
2.3 You should also acknowledge (including citing as appropriate) and describe the availability ofand any data sets or materials generated by others that were used in the course of yourresearch.

Publication Guidelines v2
May 2020

3. Publication Options and Submitting Papers to Europe PMC
Wellcome requires compliance with submission to Europe PMC as follows:•

When Trust-funded researchers prepare final grant reports, it will require the principal
investigator's institution to provide assurance that all papers associated with the grantcomply with Wellcome’s policy. Where papers listed in the final report are not compliant
with the policy, the final payment on the grant will be withheld until all papers comply.

•

Non-compliant publications will be discounted as part of a researcher's track record in any
renewal of an existing grant or new grant application.
Wellcome-funded researchers will be required to ensure that all publications associated with
their Wellcome-funded research are compliant with the Trust's policy before any funding
renewals or new grant awards will be activated.

•

Note: the sanctions outlined above only apply to papers published after 1 October 2009.
3.1 The policy applies to papers that are research publications (peer-reviewed, original (primary)research papers), and to some scholarly monographs and book chapters (see 3.3 below). It
does not apply to editorials, reviews or conference proceedings. Although editorials, reviews,
methods/protocols, methods/protocols and conference proceedings do not fall under thesubmission requirements, they should be made open access if possible (ask publishers if an
open access option is available).
In addition to all original papers which report research that has been funded, in whole or in part, by
the Trust, the policy also applies to:• All papers on which a Wellcome Investigator Award holder, Wellcome Fellow or any otherindividual in receipt of salary support from the Wellcome appears as a co- author during theperiod of their Award (this applies even where the specific research project is not Trust
funded);• All papers based on research conducted at Sanger (and hence supported through the Trust’s
core support) but itself supported by other research funders;• Consortia papers, where one (or more) of the Consortia researchers based at Sanger are
named as co-author on the paper.
•

Scholarly monographs and book chapters authored or co-authored by Trust grantholders
that arise as part of their grant-funded research. This has applied from October
2013 to all new grant-holders (i.e. those who received a grant on or after 1 October2013), and from October 2014 to all existing grant holders.

The policy would not apply in cases where the paper reports results based on the use of a Wellcome- funded resource (such as biological resources, data from a cohort, data sets or a database) anddoes not fit into the categories detailed above.
3.2 To comply with the policy: see the Publication Policy. If still unsure, email the librarylibrary@sanger.ac.uk or Wellcome openaccess@wellcome.ac.uk.
Care must be taken to select the correct Wellcome-compliant open access options at thetime of submission for publication. See the Publication Policy for more details. Please notethat deposit in PMC also ensures the paper will be available through Europe PMC. All
articles reporting original peer-reviewed research must be licensed using the Creative
Commons, Attribution licence (CC-BY) to remain WT-compliant. Authors may need to selectthis licensing option at the time of submission for publication.

Publication Guidelines v2
May 2020

The costs should be reasonably split between authors.
If there is no option for the journal to deposit the paper in Europe PMC on your behalf, thenit will need to be submitted manually.
Submit the Final Author's Draft (the version that is accepted for journal publication andincludes all modifications from the publishing peer-review process) AND supplementary
online material files to Europe PMC via Europe PMC Plus athttps://plus.europepmc.org/emss/login/uls.cgi
If you are uploading the paper on behalf of a consortium, please ensure that you upload ALL
grant numbers for consortium members as well as your own.
There is a list showing which papers have NOT been uploaded at:
http://apps.sanger.ac.uk/reports/services/publications/pmc-update.html – please check thelist and take action to ensure that any of your papers which appear there are made policycompliant.
Help
Email the library staff (library@sanger.ac.uk) if you have any queries about publication options andsubmission to Europe PMC. Most Research Administrators and PAs have been trained and will beable to assist you and staff in the library can also help.
Europe PMC Plus help page:https://plus.europepmc.org/emss/local/Help/
The Institute compliance rate, expressed as a percentage, can be found at
http://apps.sanger.ac.uk/reports/services/publications/
Further guidance is available from the following website:
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/openaccess
4

Guidelines when Changing Institutions
4.1 Manuscripts and papers based on work funded and carried out at your previous institution:
unless the work was funded by Wellcome, you do not need to acknowledge the Trust or
to comply with their open access publication policy - but you should comply with thefunder’s access policy – and if you can comply with the Trust policy without extra costthen you should; Wellcome Sanger Institute should be given as your current address.
4.2 If you continue to work on projects you started at a previous institution, using Institute time
and/or resources before you publish, then you must acknowledge Wellcome and comply
with this open access publication policy.
4.3 After leaving the Institute - manuscripts and papers based on work carried out at theInstitute must acknowledge Wellcome and comply with this open access publication
policy using the institute-wide grant number.

Publication Guidelines v2
May 2020

5Good Publication Practice
5.1 Researchers should properly acknowledge the contributions of colleagues, collaborators, andall others who directly assist or indirectly support their research. Refer to the journal’s
guidelines on authorship and acknowledgement for guidance. Anyone listed as an author ona paper should accept responsibility for ensuring that he/she is familiar with the contents ofthe paper and can identify his/her contribution to it. If you feel that a decision aboutauthorship has been unfair and this cannot be resolved within your team, you may contact
the Chief Operating Officer about it.
5.2 Plagiarism (the general misappropriation or use of others’ ideas, intellectual property orwork, written or otherwise, without acknowledgement or permission) is research
misconduct.
5.3 For reporting research involving the use of animals, please refer to the ARRIVE (Animal
Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines, available at:
http://www.nc3rs.org.uk/arrive-guidelines
5.4 For guidance on other aspects of good publication practice, the Committee on Publication
Ethics International standards for editors and authors may be a useful resource:
https://publicationethics.org/node/11184

6

Authorship and Acknowledgements
6.1 Decisions around authorship can be difficult and it is recommended that authorship is
discussed with all individuals as early as possible in a project and that lead authors ensurethat they are aware of the overall contribution made by all individuals and teams prior todecisions being made. Particular consideration should be given to technicians andindividuals from Scientific Operations or other support teams whose valuable contributions
are often forgotten.
6.2 The Institute is a proud signatory to the Technicians Commitment. Technical staff should begiven equal consideration as other contributors to the research in decisions relating toauthorship and acknowledgement.
We broadly define a Technician as "A person who is trained and/or skilled in the techniques,
tools and technology of their subject, who provides the practical application of knowledge,
including hands-on support, directly contributing to teaching and learning, research andenterprise activities. Within the context of the Sanger Institute that would, amongst others,
include members of the Animal Technician, Technical Assistant, Research Assistant, ScientificManager, Computational and Bioinformatics job families".

6.3 Acknowledgement
As a minimum all teams and/or individuals who have directly contributed to a piece of researchshould be acknowledged for their involvement. This includes staff within faculty teams, scientificoperations and informatics. Where teams or people have been involved then the team itself
should be acknowledged and consideration given to naming or authorship for key individuals
within that team who have made a particular contribution.

Publication Guidelines v2
May 2020
Example: The authors would like to thank xxx, xxx and the staff of xxx team for theircontribution.

6.4 Authorship:
1) Authors should make substantive contributions to the project, such as:- Conception, design of project, critical input, or original ideas- Analysis and interpretation of data, beyond routine practices- Draft the article or revise it critically for intellectual content- Write a portion of the paper (not just materials and methods section)- Intellectual contribution- Final authority for the approval of article
2) Each author should have participated enough to accept responsibility for the content of
the manuscript
The following activities do not represent intellectual contributions to a project and would
not normally constitute authorship, but should be recognized in the acknowledgements
section:- Collection of data (technical skill but not involved in interpretation of data)- General supervision of research group, but no intellectual input into the project- Writing assistance- Scientific advice- Use of Scientific Operations facilities
Particular attention should be given to checking individuals’ roles in the project and whether
people have contributed ideas and suggestions to experiments that would constitute authorship.
6.5 Resolving Authorship and Acknowledgement issues
In most cases disagreements will be resolvable by discussions with the lead authors, however incases where this is not the case then individuals are recommended to escalate the issue with
their line manager, member of Faculty or senior scientific lead or BoM lead.

Publication Policy prior to 2021

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
1. PUBLICATION POLICY
July 2016-Jan 2021
This policy only applies to research published BEFORE Jan 2021
Open and Unrestricted Access to Published Research
The Wellcome Trust has been a leading advocate of open and unrestricted access to publishedresearch, and has taken a strong position in mandating that papers describing the research it funds
must be made publicly available through Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC).
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s mission is to advance our understanding of gene function in
health and disease and to generate data and other resources of lasting value to biomedical
research. The Institute has a strong track record of making its research outputs widely available andfully supports the Wellcome Trust’s policy on open and unrestricted access to published research. Inline with this, Institute researchers must adhere to the following policy for all research publications
based on work carried out within the Institute or in collaboration with others:
1.
The Institute expects authors of research papers to maximise the opportunities to makethese available for free and, where possible, to retain their copyright.
2.
The Institute requires that electronic copies of all research papers that have been acceptedfor publication in a peer-reviewed journal be deposited into Europe PMC to be made freely
available as soon as possible and in any event within six months of the journal publisher’s official
date of final publication.

2.

Good Publication Practice1.
Researchers should properly acknowledge the contributions of colleagues, collaborators,
and all others who directly assist or indirectly support their research.
2.
Anyone listed as an author on a paper should accept responsibility for ensuring that he/she
is familiar with the contents of the paper and can identify his/her contribution to it.
3.
Plagiarism (the general misappropriation or use of others’ ideas, intellectual property or
work (written or otherwise), without acknowledgement or permission) is research misconduct.

Guidelines for implementing the Institute’s publication policy are available at:https://helix.wtgc.org/services/publication-policy