Open Research

New REF Open Access Policy

The REF2029 open access policy has been published.

The new requirements will be effective from 1 January 2026. We will endeavour to apply the new requirements as early as possible but outputs published between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2025 which meet the REF2021 open access requirements will be eligible for submission to REF 2029.

The REF open access policy pages will be updated in due course. 

The main changes to the policy are summarised below.

Longform outputs

There will be no mandate for longform outputs in REF 2029. Longform outputs are not considered to be in-scope of the policy.

Journal articles and conference contributions

• Implementation: implementation date for changes to the REF open access policy will be 1 January 2026.
  • This will give a clear 12-month lead-in for implementing changes and adapting systems.
  • REF 2021 policy requirements will continue to apply for all in-scope outputs published up to this date.
• Deposit: the policy requirement remains for deposit post publication (where not published fully open access).
  • The funding bodies are clear that earlier deposit is both accepted and supported. Where institutions have practices and systems in place for mandating deposit on acceptance there is no requirement to change this.
  • The post publication deposit requirement period is three months rather than one month as proposed.
• Licensing: publications should be licensed as openly as possible.
  • The funding bodies preference is for CC-BY or other equivalent license.
  • However, licenses meeting the standards of CC-BY-NC and/or CC-BY-ND (including CC-BY-NC-ND) are acceptable.
• Embargo periods: the funding bodies are aware of and appreciate the concerns set out in the consultation responses; however, a decision has been taken to continue with the proposed reductions.
  • This is in the context of, and to encourage, moves across the sector towards rights retention and exploration of open access options for publication with short/no embargo periods, to support quicker access to research.
• Exceptions: some further exceptions have been applied and changes made to some proposed exceptions responding to information from the consultation.
  • Some proposed exceptions relating to concerns over licensing are addressed by the changes to the initial proposals.
  • Exceptions are set out in the policy, grouped by exception type.
• Audit: while audit guidance for REF 2029 is still being developed, responses to the consultation make clear that there was a need to ensure some early guidance was given on general approach and triggers for audit.
  • The audit approach for open access in REF 2029 will be broadly in line with that used for REF 2021.
  • An outline of the principles for audit are set out in the revised policy.

While many of the proposed measures have been agreed and incorporated into policy, some have not been taken forward for REF 2029. These include incorporation of longform outputs, moves towards more open licensing and aligning embargo periods to the UKRI open access policy (with the aim of improving openness across the research landscape, and support moves towards rights retention across institutions). However, these areas remain as aims for the funding bodies to progress going forward into future assessment exercises.

As previously communicated, work will be taken forward to develop an open access policy for longform outputs for implementation on the 1 January 2029, at the end of the REF 2029 publication period. This will be published well in advance of these changes to give researchers and institutions time to adapt.

These are the minimum requirements. Other open research activities can count towards the People, Culture, and Environment score. The Open Research Team can help you to make your data open, publish longform content open access,  publish pre-prints or protocols and other activities that will be recognised by REF2029.

• Deposit all of your recently accepted research publications in Pure /AURA . When you have a paper accepted for publication email paperaccepted@abdn.ac.uk with a copy of the confirmation of acceptance and a copy of the accepted manuscript. Library staff will upload your paper to Pure in compliance with the publisher self-archiving, funder and REF policies. You may also add publications to Pure yourself - please see the toolkit for guidance.
• Discuss open research with your colleagues and consider teaching it to your students.
• Consider pre-registering your research e.g. on the Open Science Framework or using registered reports.
• Consider open peer-review.
• Use a preprint repository - use Sherpa Romeo to check the preprint policy of the journal you intend to submit your article to.
• Archive web resources in a way that ensures they will be available long term.
• Release your code or software under an open access licence.
• Make your data open access in a suitable repository for your subject area wherever possible. Use the repository finder and follow the FAIR data principles.
• Deposit in Pure/AURA is not restricted to articles. If you have a book or chapter accepted for publication contact us at paperaccepted@abdn.ac.uk and we will check whether the publisher offers a green open access route. You may be permitted to make a portion of the monograph available in the institutional repository