REF and Open Research

Journal articles and conference proceedings that are available in a publication that has an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

It is important to note that REF consider the “true” publication date of an article to be the first time it is made available to the public. In practice, this means that in most cases the date of the “early online” version of an article is taken as the publication date. This is important as this date determines by when the article should be openly accessible.

No other items types are required to be openly accessible (i.e. book, chapters, datasets, compositions, etc., do not have to be available on an open access basis).

Your articles must be made available on an open access basis. There are various conditions that depend on when the article was published and to which main REF panel it would be submitted, so the simplest message to hold on to is this:

To be sure that your articles are meeting REF open access requirements, upload an author accepted manuscript version of your paper to Elements as soon as possible after the journal or conference proceedings has published it online.

If you do this one thing you can be confident of meeting REF requirements. There are other ways of making your work openly accessible – see How to make your work open access for more details – but the most straightforward way of making sure you have met requirements is to upload an author accepted manuscript.

Yes. The requirements for main panels A & B are slightly different to those for main panels C & D. These differences relate to the allowable embargo period between first publication and the availabilityof an open access version.

There are separate deposit requirements (when the item must be in the Repository) and access requirements (when the item must be openly accessible).

Here we address some common misunderstandings about the REF open access policy

Myth 1: the belief that you have to publish on a paid-for “gold” open access basis to be REF-eligible. This is incorrect. As stated above, the open access requirements can be met by uploading an author accepted manuscript to Elements, from where it will be fed into, and made available from, the University Repository. Indeed, at its heart the REF policy is a mandate for free “green” open access.

Myth 2: the belief that if an author accepted manuscript is used to meet open access requirements, that is the version that will be read by REF panellists. This is incorrect – no matter which version of an article is used to meet open access requirements, the version that will be read and reviewed by REF panellists will be the version of record.

Elements is the university’s current research information system. It is fed data from other systems including Core HR and external publication databases like of Web of Science and Scopus. Data can also be entered directly into Elements. Information in Elements is then used to feed other systems, such as your web profile via TULIP, and the University Repository.

The Repository is an online open access database containing either the full text of files uploaded by staff and PGR students or links to open access versions available elsewhere. The only reason to upload a file to a publications record in Elements is to have it made openly accessible through the Repository.

For the purpose of sharing outputs with reviewers as part of the Outputs Evaluation Programme, unless these outputs are openly accessible, please do not upload files for those outputs to Elements. They cannot be shared with reviewers through Elements itself. Instead, contact your local OEP co-ordinator for guidance on how to share the content of outputs with OEP reviewers.