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Scholarly Communications

REF Open Access Guidance

REF Open Access Policy

 

There is an Open Access policy in effect for publications to be submitted to the next Research Excellence Framework (REF). The updated REF 2029 Open Access policy is now available which applies from 2026 onwards. The table below outlines how the updated policy differs from the current policy.

 

Current OA policy​ (2021-2025)

Updated OA policy​ (2026-)

Scope​

Articles and proceedings in a title with an ISSN, published from 1 Jan 2021 until 31 Dec 2025 ​

Articles and proceedings in a title with an ISSN, published from 1 Jan 2026  ​

Licence required​

No licence requirement. ​

Creative Commons licence on final version or author manuscript. CC-BY strongly preferred. CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-ND, and CC-BY-NC-ND acceptable.​

 ​

If Gold/fully OA upon publication​

No further action

No further action​

Version to upload if not published Gold/fully OA ​

Author's Accepted manuscript (AAM)​

Author's Accepted manuscript (AAM)​

When to deposit Author Accepted Manuscript​

On acceptance​*

On acceptance​*

Maximum permitted journal embargo ​

12 months (panels A/B) ​
24 months (panels C/D)​

6 months (panels A/B) ​
12 months (panels C/D)

 

*Self-deposit your publication or send the details of your publication, the date of acceptance, and a copy of your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) to repository@uel.ac.uk. 

 

REF open access policy exceptions

A limited number of open access policy exceptions are available, where a paper may be submitted to the REF without meeting the open access requirements.

Full REF open access requirements

Details of both sets of requirements, for papers published 01 January 2021 to 31 December 2025 and papers published from 01 January 2026, are in the REF 2029 open access policy.

What you need to do

 

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

What is the AAM? The AAM is the version of an output which is post-peer review, but before:

  • publisher proofreading, copyediting, formatting, and typesetting.
  • It is usually written in plain text in a Word .doc or .pdf, but publishers can provide templates to be used.
  • It can be referred to as the post-print or pre-proof, depending on the publisher.
  • It is NOT the pre-print (submitted version). It is NOT the proof (undergoing publisher editing). It is NOT the version of record (published version).

2. Alternatively, you can upload to the system yourself: login at https://research.uel.ac.uk and click 'Add output' on the right-hand side of the page. After submitting for approval the Scholarly Communications team 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.

Read our "Make your research Open Access" tab to learn more.