Deposit in Spiral for REF eligibility
Depositing your work in Spiral, Imperial’s open access research repository, allows you to make journal articles and other research outputs openly available, meet funder requirements, and ensure eligibility for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Outputs published from 1 January 2021 will be eligible for submission to the next REF.
For further guidance, see:
Depositing your work in Spiral – Top 5 frequently asked questions
What is Spiral?
Spiral is Imperial College London’s open access research repository.
It provides a platform for sharing and preserving the College’s research outputs, making them freely accessible to a global audience.
The repository contains over 120,000 items and supports Imperial’s commitment to open research by increasing the visibility, accessibility, and impact of its scholarly work.
What can be deposited?
Spiral accepts a wide range of research outputs, including: (Please allow a few moments for the linked pages to load after clicking a link)
- Journal articles (including accepted manuscripts)
- Books (monographs)
- Book chapters
- Reports and policy papers
- Briefing papers (typically included under reports)
- Working papers
- Conference papers
- Theses (Imperial only)
- Research posters
Spiral is particularly useful for:
- Making journal articles open access in line with funder and REF requirements
- Sharing outputs that are not formally published
- Disseminating research quickly, ahead of or alongside peer-reviewed publication
Spiral does not perform peer review, but hosts content that may have been peer reviewed elsewhere.
Why use Spiral?
Depositing your work in Spiral offers several benefits:
- Open access compliance
Helps meet funder and REF open access requirements
- Increased visibility
Research is easily discoverable and shareable
- Long-term preservation
Outputs are securely stored and maintained by Imperial
- Persistent links
Items are assigned stable URLs and, for some outputs such as PhD theses and reports, DOIs - Usage insights
Download statistics help demonstrate reach and impact
How to deposit a file in Spiral via Symplectic
This video shows you how to use Spiral and Symplectic to upload your research outputs and make them eligible for REF.
Stay up to date with new research
Work in communications or write about research? Stay informed about the latest outputs from Imperial.
- Imperial users can subscribe to collections and receive email alerts (daily, weekly, or monthly) when new items are added
- Subscriptions are available via Spiral once logged in with Imperial credentials
- External users can follow collections via RSS
How to subscribe
- Visit https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk
- Navigate to a collection (for example, Physics PhD theses)
- Click Subscribe and choose your preferred alert frequency
- Manage your subscriptions here
Example reports and research outputs in Spiral
Spiral hosts a wide range of impactful research outputs from across Imperial, including:
- NHS data: Maximising its impact on the health and wealth of the United Kingdom
Institute of Global Health Innovation
- Building the evidence base for regional water planning
Imperial Grantham Institute
- Report 9: Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand
Faculty of Medicine
- Estimation of the size of the outbreak of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (20 May 2026 update)
MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis - Chemical Engineering Research: Reports of 4th Year Research Projects
Department of Chemical Engineering, edited by Professor Müller
This publication showcases undergraduate research projects and demonstrates how Spiral can be used to disseminate student research outputs in book form
FAQs about depositing your work in Spiral
The FAQs explain how to deposit research outputs in Spiral via Symplectic Elements, when and which versions to upload (especially accepted manuscripts), and how this supports REF compliance, embargo management, and open access visibility, with guidance on preprints, co-authorship, and copyright.