HEFCE policy for Open Access in the REF starts 1st April

Friday, 01 April 2016

Researchers should note that HEFCE policy now requires that all journal articles and conference proceedings accepted for publication on or after 1st April 2016 must be deposited in a repository within 3 months of acceptance to be eligible for the next Research Excellence Framework (REF).  

To comply, Reading researchers must:

• Deposit the author final manuscript (i.e. journal article, conference proceedings paper etc.) into CentAUR as soon as the manuscript is accepted for publication by your publisher (and no later than 3 months after the acceptance date). This is the accepted manuscript, not the final, corrected manuscript as it appears in press.  

If a publisher asks that authors wait before depositing manuscripts into a repository, such as under the agreement of a publication embargo, manuscripts should still be deposited in CentAUR as soon as possible following acceptance. CentAUR staff will check permissions and, where required, will close access to manuscripts in order to comply with the publisher’s policy.

If you are unable to deposit the accepted manuscript as early as possible, please contact our CentAUR team urgently for advice.

Further information for Reading researchers is available here.