The UK Research Councils (AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC, and STFC) issued an Open Access Policy in April 2013, which came into immediate effect.  In summary, this states:

• All journal articles that originate from research funded by the Research Councils must be made available on open access.
• Gold open access should be used wherever possible, in which case the article must be Open Access immediately from date of publication.
• If no viable Gold option is available, Green open access must be utilized, with an embargo of no more than 6 months for STEM disciplines, and 12 for AHRC/ESRC-funded projects.
• Articles must be published with a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.

An annual audit of compliance with the policy is carried out in April each year. 

SHERPA, which partners with Jisc, provides services for checking publishers' and journals' OA options, and how these comply with funders' policies. The information they provide may help you choose whether a title is appropriate to publish in. They also maintain OpenDOAR, which maintains a list of repositories you may wish to deposit in.

A key part of publishing open access material is ensuring that readers understand what permissions they have for re-use of the material. The Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association offers best practice guidelines on licensing and attribution in open access:

Gold Open Access options from a selection of publishers:

• Cambridge UP
• Elsevier
• Oxford UP
• Palgrave 
• SAGE
• Springer Nature
• Taylor & Francis

These are not recommendations; other publishers have similar offerings.

Beware of predatory publishers who "lie about their business practices for the purpose of attracting paying authors".  

• University of Utah Associate Dean Rick Anderson reviews Cabell's Blacklist,  a directory of questionable journals  (Scholarly Kitchen, May 2019).
• Hull Professor of Nursing Roger Watson has recorded a podcast (2016) on "steps you can take to protect yourself" from predatory publishers.
• Advice on how to spot a 'predatory' publisher can be found in this 2014 article by Miggie Pickton of the University of Northampton.

With so many publishers out there, choosing where to publish can be tricky. Think. Check. Submit. offers researchers a checklist that will help them decide if a publisher is trustworthy without having to rely on verified lists.