Understanding open access

The UK's higher education funding councils are supportive of open access initiatives and as a result of this introduced an open access policy for REF2021. Until the next REF policy is announced, the criteria for open access continues to apply into the current REF cycle.

Main points of the policy are:

• Journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN accepted for publication after 1st April 2018 must be deposited in an institutional repository as soon as possible after the acceptance, and within 3 months of the date of acceptance.
• Publications within the scope of the policy and are embargoed in line with publisher policies (using institutional repository or publishers' open access licences) will 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.

For full details please see the guide on City Research Online and REF

City, University of London has an institutional open access policy

Main points of the policy are:

• All research outputs published by City academics within scope of the REF policy should be openly available through City Research Online, City's institutional repository.
• All research outputs, such as book chapters, should also be deposited in CRO, unless there are specific technical or legal reasons not to do so
• All journal articles and conference proceedings with an ISSN submitted to City's ARQM should be openly available through City Research Online.

Please refer to the policy for full details.

Many UK and international funders have open access requirements for research outputs produced using their grants. To find out more about these please refer to the Research Funder Open Access Policy guide.