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Scholarly Communications

UEL OA Policy

The University of East London is committed to and supports open access to its research outputs. Open access is free and permanent access to the outputs of scholarly research. There is a worldwide move towards open access, with benefits for researchers, universities and wider society. UEL supports this initiative and recognises the importance of open access in increasing the visibility and impact of its research. This policy is aligned with and supports HEFCE’s Policy for open access in the next Research Excellence Framework, and is aligned with the open access requirements of research funding bodies.

Outputs created by UEL staff will therefore be made available on an open access basis wherever possible. This policy was adopted by the Research & Knowledge Exchange Committee on 19th April 2018.

  

REF

The post-REF 2021 Open Access policy is currently under review. The REF 2021 Open Access policy should therefore be followed until further notice:

Open Access and REF2021:

There is an Open Access policy in effect for publications to be submitted to the next Research Excellence Framework.

The policy applies to journal articles and conference proceedings published with an ISSN: these need to be added to the UEL Research Repository within 3 months of acceptance for publication.

It applies to research accepted for publication from 1st April 2016

What you need to do:

Upon acceptance: send details of the publication, the date of acceptance, and a copy of the Accepted Manuscript to repository@uel.ac.uk

We will check for all copyright or publisher requirements, including embargoes, and will upload to the UEL Research Repository for you in accordance with all relevant conditions.

There are a few exceptions to this policy, but to be sure of your publication's eligibility for the REF it is important you send the details and manuscript within 3 months of acceptance.

UKRI

UKRI OA Policy (from 01 April 2022)

UKRI’s new OA policy applies to in-scope journal articles and conference papers that acknowledge UKRI funding and are submitted for publication from 01 April 2022 (and monographs, book chapters and edited collections published from 1 January 2024).

When submitting UKRI funded journal articles or conference proceedings for publication from 1 April 2022, authors must:

  • make sure that their paper can be made available immediately Open Access under a CC BY licence.

  • include a Data Access Statement in the paper

Two routes to policy compliance:

Route 1: publish in an open access journal or publishing platform, with a CC BY licence​. This includes publishing in a journal covered by a UKRI-compliant transitional agreement. You can check journal compliance using the Journal Checker Tool

(UEL researchers can publish their review and primary research articles open access with no charge in Elsevier and Wiley  journals that are part of our "read & publish" agreements with these publishers.) 

 

Route 2: publish in a subscription journal and deposit the accepted manuscript in a subject or institutional repository with a CC BY licence and with no embargo from the date of first online publication. To publish using route two, on submission manuscripts it is advisable to include the following licensing text: 

"For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising". 

 

Exceptions and OGL: 

Use the following statement on submissions from 1/4/2022 only if you have negotiated a licence exception with UKRI before submitting, or if you are using the Open Government Licence.

 

  • Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution No-derivatives (CC BY-ND) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.’  

 

  • Open Government Licence: ‘For the purpose of open access, the author has applied an Open Government Licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.’ 

 

 

The licensing text asserts author copyright to any arising accepted manuscript (following peer review and relevant editorial processes), including the application of a CC BY licence to that accepted manuscript when deposited in a repository.  

 

Where an output includes third party copyright content, researchers do not need to seek permission for this content to be made available under a CC BY licence – UKRI specifies third party copyright content is not subject to its OA requirements.  

 

 

Data Access Statement:

Regardless of the route chosen, in-scope articles must include a Data Access Statement. The Data Access Statement lets readers know where the underlying research materials associated with a paper are available, and how the research materials can be accessed. If applicable and appropriate, the statement can include links to the dataset.

The data referred to in a Data Access Statement does not have to be openly available, and if there is no associated data, this must be stated in the data access statement.