REF 2029 open access policy

By depositing your accepted manuscript in Spiral now, your final published journal article or conference paper will be eligible for submission to REF 2029. To do this, you must upload a copy of your accepted manuscript to Symplectic, or ask a proxy to do so. The Library’s open access team will manage all accepted manuscript submissions to ensure you have provided sufficient information, and that the submitted manuscript meets the REF eligibility requirements.

If you have deposited your accepted manuscript in arXiv, you can choose to either upload the manuscript or add the arXiv link to the OA location field in Symplectic. To meet REF requirements, it must be the accepted manuscript, not the preprint, that is deposited in arXiv for this to apply and it should have been deposited prior to the date of publication. Please contact the Library’s open access team for more information.

Your final journal article or conference paper does not have to be published on ‘gold’ open access, i.e. you do not have to pay an open access fee or APC, to be eligible for REF 2029.

What is the REF census period for outputs? 
Outputs produced from 1 January 2021 will be eligible for REF 2029.