Research Excellence Framework

Researchers must continue to follow the REF2021 Open Access requirements until further notice.

This resource will be developed as more details about the future research exercise are released.

Current REF open access requirements (based on REF2021)

The REF open access requirements are broken down into 3 steps:

Deposit (i.e. upload to Pure) within 3 months of acceptance. See How to Deposit guidance.
Discovery (i.e. through the Pure Portal) of the metadata - achieved by setting Pure record visibility to ‘Public’. This will happen automatically once a publication date is added (and the date has passed), or records can be manually set to ‘Public’.
Access (via the repository) following any embargo if required - the OA team will arrange this.

The funding councils understand that not all REF outputs in scope of the policy may be able to meet requirements, so limited exceptions will be permitted. Contact openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk to find out if this applies to your publication.

Practical advice for researchers to meet these requirements:

Create a new Pure record on acceptance (if one does not already exist)
Deposit the accepted manuscript in Pure
Add the date of acceptance to the Pure record.

The current position of the Scottish Funding Council is stated at https://www.sfc.ac.uk/research/open-access/open-access.aspx, and confirmation that you should follow the REF2021 OA requirements until further notice is also given by UKRI.