City Research Online

REF policy for Open Access

Research England is supportive of open access initiative and as a result of this introduced an Open Access policy for REF2021.

Main points of the policy are:

• Journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN accepted for publication after 1st April 2016 must be deposited in an institutional repository as soon as possible after the acceptance, and within 3 months of the date of publication. This will change to within 3 months of the date of acceptance from 1st April 2018.
• Publications within the scope of the policy but not openly accessible (using institutional repository or publishers' open access licences) will not be eligible for the next REF. 
• Policy allows for a number of exceptions to allow for as many publications as possible to be eligible for the next REF.

City's Open Access policy

The policy for Open Access (PDF, 311 KB) has been approved by the Senate on the 4th March 2015.

Main points of the policy are:

• All research outputs published by City academics within the scope of the HEFCE policy should be openly available through City Research Online, City's institutional repository.
• All research outputs published by City academics after 1st January 2013 and outside the scope of the HEFCE policy should also be openly available through City Research Online.
• All journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN submitted to City's ARQM should be openly available through City Research Online

More information about City and Open Access can be found on the City's Research and Enterprise webpages

Research funders and Open Access

Many UK and international funders have Open Access requirements for research outputs produced using their grants. To find out about specific requirements, you can use following tools: The following tools can help to find out