Guide to funder licence requirements for OA articles

Several funders require their grantees to publish under specific Creative Commons licences as part of their open access (OA) policies. Read on to learn more and to check if you need to select the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) when publishing your OA article with Springer Nature. All Springer Nature journals offer a CC BY option, so you can always comply with your funder’s OA licence requirements.

Full details of the OA licences offered in our journals can be found on individual journal websites. For more information on OA licences see our guide to licensing, copyright and author rights and for further support with meeting the requirements of your funder, please see our OA funding and policy guidance.

Check your research funder’s licence requirements

If the research in your article is being supported by one of the following funders, you may need to select CC BY in order to comply with their OA policy requirements when publishing with Springer Nature. To check whether this applies to your specific grant or article, read more in your funder’s policy or check your grant terms and conditions.

Check your APC funder’s licence requirements

If your OA article processing charge (APC) is being supported by one of the following funders, you may need to select CC BY in order to comply with their OA policy requirements when publishing with Springer Nature. Read more in the funder policies linked below.

NOTE: The information on this page reflects research funders’ open access policies to the best of our knowledge, but may not capture all funders or institutions with Creative Commons licence requirements. Authors are advised to check open access requirements on funder websites and read grant terms and conditions for full details of policy requirements.