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University open access policies
The policies below apply to the work that you produce whilst at the Âé¶¹Ö±²¥. Policies relating to Research Data Management and open data can be found .
Institutional open access policy
(revised May 2026)
The University supports the principles of open access where legally, commercially and ethically appropriate. These principles apply to all research conducted at the University, regardless of funding source.
- in-scope outputs are journal articles and conference proceedings published with an ISSN
- staff must make in-scope outputs open access by uploading via Symplectic to ORE
- to ensure compliance with REF open access policy, all in-scope outputs must be deposited to ORE upon, or at the latest within 3 months of, acceptance
- embargo periods (where permitted by the funder) must not exceed six months for STEM disciplines, and 12 months for HASS disciplines
- authors of other output types such as monographs or book chapters are encouraged to pursue open access publication, where possible and practical
- all research publications must include a data access statement
Furthermore,
Researchers should always comply with their funder open access policy (if applicable).
Where external funding is available to publish open access, including from the research funder, researchers should take advantage of this before applying to University budgets.
The University will fund open access publication for UKRI or Wellcome Trust funded research.
Limited institutional open access funding is available, researchers should contact the Open Research team prior to submission, to apply.
Researchers are encouraged to make use of agreements available through the Library, which enable open access publishing without individual article fees, as it has already been paid for.
Check journal options before submitting using .
Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ Rights Retention Policy
The applies to:
- authors and co-authors who are Staff or Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs) at the Âé¶¹Ö±²¥
- journal articles or conference proceedings with an ISSN that are authored or co-authored whilst affiliated with Âé¶¹Ö±²¥
- first submitted for publication from 1st January 2024
- The University waives ownership of copyright of and acknowledges that members of staff own the copyright to, scholarly works they create, such as academic journal articles, text books, conference papers and related presentations/aide memoires for personal use, see the .
- In exchange for waiving ownership of copyright, authors grant the University a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to make manuscripts of their scholarly articles publicly available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence or a similar licence terms
- Authors apply a CC-BY licence to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) upon submission, giving precedence over any subsequent publisher's licensing agreement.
- Include the following wording in all article submissions, in the manuscript and any covering letter: “For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission"
- An alternative statement with the same intended outcome can be used if required by specific funders.
- Inform your co-authors about the University's Rights Retention policy and agree on a licence before submission.
- Whilst CC-BY is strongly encouraged, the University recognizes the need for different licences based on funder requirements, such as CC BY NC/ND or the Open Government Licence for research subject to Crown copyright.
- After acceptance, upload the accepted manuscript (containing the Rights Retention statement) via Symplectic to ORE.
Policy for managing central open access funds
The Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ policy for managing central open access funds
- applies from 01 January 2021
- applies to centrally administered open access funds: UKRI, Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Institutional open access fund
- aligns our strategy with and
Funds will be prioritised to support:
- open access publishing fees where these are essential to publication e.g. fully open access journals
For more details, view the Central open access funds policy and FAQ
Eligibility criteria: open access funds and publisher agreements
Eligibility criteria for accessing the University's and were approved by the Research and Impact Executive Committee (RIEC) in May 2023. Revisions to the criteria, primarily intended for the institutional fund, apply from 1st April 2026.
To apply to the funds and agreements, eligible corresponding authors are:
- currently employed members of staff
- students of the University (PGR, PGT, UG) during their course and for up to two years after completion, when publishing research that was conducted at Âé¶¹Ö±²¥
- clinicians (with Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ Associate status)
- researchers funded through the Council for At Risk Academics (with Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ Associate status)
When open access publishing is funded through Exeter's funds or publisher agreements, we expect that a Âé¶¹Ö±²¥ affiliation is being used on the paper.
All requests to the institutional open access fund must include a or equivalent, outlining the involvement in the research of all authors and we recommend that this is included in the article as well.
Affiliation will be verified at the point of approving an open access request, which is usually at submission to an open access journal and upon acceptance to a hybrid one. When publishing through agreements, in the case of multiple corresponding authors, publishers may define which corresponding author must be affiliated and we abide by the publisher definition.
Former staff of the University are no longer eligible, unless the paper was submitted during their employment at Exeter (and publishing research that was conducted at the University). Contact the Open Research team to discuss cases that fall outside the eligibility criteria above, particularly if your work arises from external research funding and you are concerned about compliance with your funder open access policy.
ORE policy
This document is the policy for Open Research Exeter (ORE), the institutional repository of the Âé¶¹Ö±²¥: ORE policy.