Sherpa Juliet: Funder OA Policy Database

Sherpa Juliet was a free database that catalogued the open access and research-data policies of research funding organisations, primarily in the United Kingdom. It was one of three related ‘Sherpa services’ — alongside Sherpa Romeo (publisher and journal self-archiving policies) and Sherpa Fact (a funder-versus-journal compliance checker) — run by Jisc, the UK’s not-for-profit digital, data, and technology agency for higher and further education. In November 2024, Jisc retired the separate Juliet, Romeo, and Fact interfaces and consolidated them into a single platform called Open Policy Finder. Searching for "Sherpa Juliet" today no longer leads to a standalone Juliet site, but the funder-policy data it indexed still exists inside the merged tool. This guide explains what Sherpa Juliet covered, how it differed from Romeo and Fact, and how to find the same funder open access policy information today.

What Sherpa Juliet Covered

Sherpa Juliet indexed the open access and data-sharing requirements of more than 100 research funders, most based in the UK, alongside a smaller number of international funders. For each funder, a Juliet record set out details such as:

Whether the funder required (mandated) open access to outputs it funded, and on what timeline after publication
Whether the funder specified a particular repository for deposit — for example, Europe PMC for many biomedical funders — or accepted deposit in any suitable repository
The funder’s position on data management and data sharing, including whether a data management plan was a condition of funding
Any funder-specific restrictions on which version of a manuscript could be shared and when, relevant to satisfying a green open access route

This made Juliet the go-to reference for the question authors, librarians, and research offices asked most often at the funder-compliance stage of a project: not "what does the journal allow," but "what does my funder actually require of me."

Juliet vs. Romeo vs. Fact: Three Different Questions

The three original Sherpa services answered three distinct questions, and understanding the split still helps when interpreting funder-policy information inside today’s merged tool:

Sherpa Romeo answered: what does this specific journal or publisher permit for self-archiving? See CASRAI’s guide to searching Open Policy Finder for journal self-archiving policies.
Sherpa Juliet answered: what does this specific funder require of grant recipients?
Sherpa Fact answered the compliance question neither of the other two could answer alone: if I publish in Journal X, funded by Funder Y, will that combination actually satisfy Funder Y’s open access mandate? Fact cross-referenced a Romeo-style journal record against a Juliet-style funder record to give a direct compliant/non-compliant read.

Because funder mandates and publisher self-archiving permissions do not always align — a journal might allow deposit only after a 12-month embargo while a funder requires open access within 6 months, for instance — Fact existed specifically to catch that mismatch before submission, not after.

The November 2024 Merger into Open Policy Finder

On 4 November 2024, Jisc launched Open Policy Finder, replacing the three separate Sherpa Romeo, Juliet, and Fact interfaces — plus OpenDOAR, the repository directory — with a single consolidated search platform. Jisc has operated the Sherpa services since they were founded in 2006 at the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research Communications. According to Jisc’s own announcement of the change, the goal was to give authors and institutions one interface for open access and compliance decisions instead of requiring separate lookups across multiple standalone databases. The legacy v2.sherpa.ac.uk/juliet/ interface no longer functions as an independent funder-policy lookup tool; both journal/publisher policy data and funder policy data are now searchable within Open Policy Finder itself.

How to Find Funder Open Access Policies Today

To find the funder-policy information that used to live in a standalone Juliet record:

Go to openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk and use the search bar.
Search by the funder’s name (for example, a UK research council, a charitable funder, or a government agency) rather than a journal title, to surface funder-specific policy fields rather than publisher records.
Review the funder record for its open access requirement, repository deposit expectations, embargo limits, and data-sharing position.
If you need to check a specific journal against a specific funder’s requirement — the question Sherpa Fact used to answer directly — you will generally need to check the journal’s own self-archiving record (see CASRAI’s Open Policy Finder search guide) against the funder’s stated requirement manually, since the dedicated one-click Fact compliance check is no longer offered as a separate feature under that name.

Coverage still skews toward UK funders, reflecting Juliet’s original scope, so records for funders outside the UK and Europe may be thinner or absent. For US federal funders in particular, check the funder’s own policy directly — see CASRAI’s guide to the Plan S framework for European/UK funder mandates, and note that US agency requirements (such as the NIH Public Access Policy) sit outside Plan S entirely and are not indexed in Open Policy Finder.

Why This Matters for Research Administrators

Research administrators and research office staff use funder open access policy data at several points in a grant’s lifecycle: when advising a principal investigator on which repository to deposit in, when drafting the data management and sharing sections of a proposal, and when verifying compliance ahead of a final or interim grant report. A funder’s OA policy is a real condition of the award in many cases, not just a best practice — funders including UKRI enforce compliance checks before releasing funding for a subsequent grant to the same investigator. Knowing that the underlying data formerly split across Romeo, Juliet, and Fact now lives in one merged Open Policy Finder record set means research offices should update any internal guidance, LibGuides, or onboarding material that still references the three tools as separate destinations.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Sherpa Juliet still available as a separate website?

No. As of the November 2024 platform launch, Jisc retired the standalone Juliet interface. The funder-policy data it contained is now searchable inside Open Policy Finder alongside publisher and journal policy data.

What was the difference between Sherpa Juliet and Sherpa Romeo?

Sherpa Romeo covered what a specific journal or publisher permits for self-archiving a manuscript. Sherpa Juliet covered what a specific research funder requires of the researchers it funds regarding open access and data sharing. They answered complementary but different questions.

Does Open Policy Finder still show funder open access policies?

Yes. Open Policy Finder consolidated the Juliet funder-policy dataset into the same platform as the former Romeo journal/publisher data, so funder policy information is still available, just inside a single merged interface rather than a separate Juliet-branded site.

Who operates Open Policy Finder?

Jisc, the UK’s not-for-profit digital, data, and technology agency for higher and further education, operates Open Policy Finder. Jisc has run the underlying Sherpa services since they were founded in 2006 at the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Research Communications.

How do I check whether a specific journal satisfies my funder’s open access mandate now that Sherpa Fact is gone?

Sherpa Fact’s one-click cross-check between a journal record and a funder record is no longer offered as a distinct named feature. In practice this means checking the journal’s self-archiving policy and the funder’s OA requirement separately within Open Policy Finder (or directly on the funder’s own policy page) and comparing the two manually — for example, comparing the journal’s allowed embargo length against the funder’s maximum allowed embargo.