REF Open Access Requirements

The UK REF team have published the open access policy for REF 2029.

Open access requirements will apply to journal articles and conference proceedings that have an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) and were published between 01 January 2021 and 31 December 2028. The open access requirement includes items that do not require peer review. There are no open access requirements for other output types such as longform publications.

Articles published up to 31 December 2025 

The REF Open Access requirements as defined in REF2021 continue to apply to articles and conference proceedings that are published until 31 December 2025: 

  • The author accepted manuscript must be deposited in a repository within 3 months of acceptance. 

The author is responsible for ensuring deposit to the University publications repository by sending the accepted manuscript to research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk.  

  • The allowable embargo periods are quite generous for now:
    • 12 months for main panels A and B – medicine, health and life sciences, physical sciences, engineering and mathematics.
    • 24 months for main panels C and D - social sciences, arts and humanities. 

Articles published from 1 January 2026 

For articles and conference proceedings published from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028 there will be some stricter requirements:

  • They must have an open access licence (Creative Commons or equivalent)
  • New embargo limits will be:
    • Panel A and B: 6 months
    • Panel C and D: 12 months

If a paper spans the boundaries of panels the longer embargo may be respected.

Authors should continue to follow the established process and notify research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk on acceptance of any articles or conference proceedings.

Authors should consider these requirements before submitting articles. Please contact research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk if you have any questions about the REF open access policy or would like a member of the team to speak to a group of staff in your school.

The policy can be found on the REF 2029 website.

 

Deposit requirements

For an article or formal conference proceeding to be eligible for the REF the following must apply:

  • The output must be deposited in a repository (institutional, shared service or disciplinary). The University of Glasgow has a repository (Enlighten: Publications), and staff in the library will provide support in collating the relevant information.
    • If you produced research outputs before coming to the University of Glasgow, we recommend you add any papers, books and reports to Enlighten. They will be considered for REF if they fit the criteria. They can also be publicised on your staff profile and other sites that use Enlighten, and be included in your annual review.
    • If you deposit in a third-party repository, send the deposit information, including a link, to research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk with confirmation that it is the author-accepted manuscript.
    • Records will be retained in Enlighten for individuals who leave the University.
  • The output must be deposited as soon as possible after acceptance and no later than three months after acceptance. Authors should continue to follow the established process and notify research-openaccess@glasgow.ac.uk on acceptance of any articles or conference proceedings published from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028.
  • The output deposited should be the accepted version (following peer review). This may be the author-accepted manuscript (agreed text before publisher adds logos, etc.) or the publisher version depending on what the publisher will allow. Jisc's open policy finder can give you a guide as to what the publisher allows, or you may check the journal policy. Library staff will be able to advise about individual journals if a policy is unclear.
  • The accepted version may be replaced at a later date with the published version where this is permitted by the publisher.
  • Pre-prints (the version prior to peer review) are not acceptable. See Pre-print guidance for details.

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Discovery requirements

  • The deposited item should contain sufficient information about the content (metadata) to facilitate its discovery via automated tools such as search engines like Google.
  • Once discoverable, the output should remain so.
  • Where an accepted version is augmented or replaced by a published version, the same metadata requirements will apply.

 

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Access requirements

  • The full text of outputs should be fully open, i.e., PDF security settings should enable searching of the text, reading and downloading without charge.
  • Outputs deposited without a publisher embargo on access should meet all requirements as soon as possible and no later than one month after deposit.
  • Outputs deposited with an embargo should meet all requirements as soon as possible after the embargo period expires.
  • The embargo period starts from the point of publication (includes online publication).

 

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Licensing requirements (from 1 January 2026)

  • In-scope outputs should be licensed as openly as possible. For example, a CC-BY-NC-ND licence would meet the minimum requirement standard of openness and be permitted.
  • However, UKRI/Wellcome funded researchers will still need to use the CC-BY licence.

Exceptions and Examples

A range of exceptions can be read in the full REF2029 Open Access policy (para 6 for exceptions from 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025 and para 8 for exceptions from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2028).

Examples include:

  • The publication requires an embargo period that is longer than that required, but is the most appropriate journal for the researcher.
  • The publication does not permit any form of open access but is the most appropriate journal for the paper.
  • The individual whose output is being submitted to the REF experienced a delay in securing the final peer reviewed text (for instance where the author has requested a copy from co-authors but this has not been provided).

Some author judgement will be accepted where no suitable open access option is allowed and the journal is deemed (by the author) to be the most suitable publication.

Although text mining is not essential note that credit may be given in the research environment assessment for the ability to text mine and for promoting open access.

 

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