The four main UK higher education funding bodies, including the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), have put in place an Open Access policy for the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). This means that certain outputs submitted to the next REF must be made available on an Open Access basis. 'REF 2021 Open Access Guidance' information is available from the link below.
"Authors' outputs must have been deposited in an institutional or subject repository on acceptance for publication. Deposited material should be discoverable, and free to read and download, for anyone with an internet connection."
This policy applies to:
The policy does not apply to monographs or other long form publications, to non-text outputs, research data, conference proceedings published with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), or publications that must remain confidential for security or commercial reasons.
You must deposit a copy of the final peer-reviewed accepted manuscript in an institutional repository (e.g. SRUC Repository) as soon as possible after acceptance by the publisher, and no later than 3 months than after this date.
To comply and deposit in the 'SRUC Repository' (link below), once your paper has been accepted, please complete the Publication Deposit form on the intranet (access within SRUC network or Staff Desktop only). Fill in the compulsory fields and attach a copy of your final accepted manuscript.
Once your form is submitted, it will be forwarded for checking and entry into the internal SRUC Research Publications database and the 'SRUC Repository' (link below). A record will be created with the bibliographic information and the manuscript will be made open access as soon as possible.
Publishers often impose a delay on making manuscripts available through open access repositories and the REF policy makes allowances for these. The maximum permitted periods are 12 months (Panels A and B) and 24 months (Panels C and D).
Outputs with no embargo will be made accessible within 1 month of deposit and those with an embargo with be made accessible within 1 month of it ending.
There are some publishers who do not permit making manuscripts available through open access repositories at all. This means it is vital to be aware of the REF requirements when deciding where to publish and to ensure that the journal you are publishing in will allow you to meet them. The SHERPA RoMEO service offers a quick way to check what open access options a journal offers. You can access it here:
You need to take responsibility for depositing papers that you are named on to ensure REF compliance, even if you are not the corresponding or lead author.
Papers with non-SRUC colleagues: if you want the paper to be considered for the next REF submission, you need to obtain a copy of the accepted manuscript and deposit it within the 3 month timeframe.
Papers with multiple SRUC authors: you will need to agree amongst yourselves who will make the deposit.
A limited number of exceptions to the policy apply where an output may be exempt from the open access policy. These fall under the categories of deposit, access and technical exceptions. It is expected that such cases will be rare.
From 1st April 2018, publications must be deposited within 3 months of acceptance by the publisher in order to be eligible for REF 2021.
As soon as you know your paper has been accepted for publication, act on acceptance and deposit a copy in the SRUC Repository.
Missing the deadline means that you risk your paper not being eligible for REF.
The version that you need to deposit in order to comply is the Accepted Manuscript,– otherwise known as Post-print, Author’s Final Version, Author Accepted Manuscript – this is the author’s version of the manuscript that has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication. It incorporates any changes or corrections required and has been revised by the author.
This diagram from HEFCE illustrates the differences between the versions. Clicking on it will open a larger image.
If your paper is being published through the Gold OA route, it is still eligible for REF. However rather than depositing your accepted manuscript, the final published version can be made available in the 'SRUC Repository' (link below) instead. Make sure you still complete the deposit form within the 3 month timeframe.
Email openaccess@sruc.ac.uk with enquiries on making your papers OA, the REF OA requirements, the SRUC Repository or for further information on OA in general.
