Research Excellence Framework (REF) Open Access policy

The REF2021 Submission is complete. Future REF exercises are likely to continue with an Open Access Policy. Until a formal policy for a future REF is announced we will continue to apply the requirements of the REF2021 Open Access Policy.

Requirements

The Author-Accepted Manuscript of all articles and conference proceedings must be deposited in an open access institutional (i.e. Open Research Online) or subject repository within 3 months of the date of acceptance with the publisher.
The policy covers papers accepted for publication on or after 1 April 2016.
The maximum permitted embargo is 12 months (for Panels A and B) or 24 months (Panels C and D).
Articles published as Gold open articles are exempt from the policy requirement.

This podcast explains the Research England Open Access Policy

In this video, brought to you by Library Services, we're going to talk about the Research England Open Access policy for REF 2021.

The policy itself can be found within the REF2021 "Guidance on submissions". A link to the guidance can be found below this video.

The policy applies to all journal articles and conference proceedings published with an ISSN. These journal articles and conference proceedings are referred to as "outputs" by the policy.

If you want your outputs to be submissable to REF2021, you have to comply with Research England's policy.

This policy came into effect on 1st April 2018.

This change means that the author's accepted manuscript of an eligible output needs to be deposited in an open access reposiory within 3 months of the date of acceptance with the publisher. Previously, it had been within 3 months of the date of first online publication.

At The Open University it is strongly recommended that you deposit in ORO, our institutional repository.

However, you can also deposit in a subject repository like arXiv.

The author's accepted manuscript is the version of the fuil text after peer review but before copy editing and type setting by the publisher.

Research England expect any embargo periods on eligible outputs to be within 12 montsh for Panels A and B or 24 months for Panels C and D.

Embargo periods can be checked on the Sherpa Romeo database.

Research England have provision for certain exceptions to the policy. For example, outputs published via Gold Open Access do not have to be deposited in a repository, although it is recommended. Exceptions are available for outputs that do not comply with the stipulated embargo periods, if the place of publication can be shown to be the most appropriate for that output. Furthermore, there is an exception that allows outputs unable to be deposited within 3 months of the date of acceptance with the publisher to remain compliant if they are deposited up to 3 months after the date of publication.

Please check the REF2021 "Guidance on submissions" for full details of all exceptions, especially if you intend to claim one.

Thanks for watching, for further information please contact library-research-support@open.ac.uk