Researcher Compass

The refreshed policy aims to address ongoing challenges and advance systemic change in scholarly publishing. It requires funded manuscripts to be promptly shared in the form of a preprint on a preprint server recognized by the foundation or a preapproved server that applies a sufficient level of scrutiny to submissions, unless there are ethical, safety, or other legitimate concerns that prevent authors from sharing the manuscripts.

Accepted articles must be deposited immediately upon publication in PubMed Central (PMC) or another openly accessible repository, with proper metadata tagging identifying Gates funding. All Funded Manuscripts, including any subsequent updates to key conclusions, shall be available immediately, without any embargo, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) or an equivalent license, which permits all users to copy, redistribute, transform, and build upon the material in any medium or format for any purpose (including commercial) without further permission or fees being required. The Foundation also requires that underlying data supporting the Funded Manuscripts shall be made accessible immediately and as open as possible upon availability of the Funded Manuscripts, subject to any applicable ethical, legal, or regulatory requirements or restrictions. Any publication fees are the responsibility of the grantees and their co-authors.

This Open Access policy applies to all Funded Manuscripts, whether the funding is in whole or in part. Compliance will be continuously reviewed, and grantees and authors will be contacted when they are non-compliant.

When publishing research papers with funded projects, please ensure you observe the policies and requirements as mandated by the funders.

Learn more about Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Refreshed Open Access Policy: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/policies-and-resources/open-access-policy